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THE APPLE-TREE 



THE OPEN COUNTRY BOOKS 

A continuing company of genial little books 
about the out-of-doors 

Under the editorship of 

L. H. BAILEY 

1. The Apple-Tree . . . . L. H. Bailey 

2. A Home Vegetable Garden-Ella M. Freeman 

3. The Cow . . Jared Van Wagenen, Jr. 



Others about weather and the sky, scenery, 
camps, recreation, quadrupeds, fishes, birds, 
insects, reptiles, plants, and the places in the 
open. 



The Open Country Books — No. i 



THE APPLE-TREE 



BY 

I> H. BAILEY 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1922 

All rights reserved 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



*t» 



Copyright, 1922, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1922. 



FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY 
NEW YORK 

©CIA654365 
JAN 25 1922 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 



I. Where There is no Apple-Tree. 

II. The Apple-Tree in the Landscape 

III. The Buds on the Twigs 

IV. The Weeks Between the Flower and the 

Fruit 

V. The Brush Pile 

VI. The Pruning of the Apple-Tree . 

VII. Maintaining the Health and Energy of the 

Apple-Tree 

VIII. How an Apple-Tree is Made 

IX. The Dwarf Apple-Tree 

X. Whence Comes the Apple-Tree ? 

XI. The Varieties of Apple 

XII. The Pleasant Art of Grafting . 

XIII. The Mending of the Apple-Tree 

XIV. Citizens of the Apple-Tree . . , 
XV. The Apple-Tree Regions 

XVI. The Harvest of the Apple-Tree . 

XVII. The Appraisal of the Apple-Tree • 



7 
lo 

15 

19 

27 

41 
48 

54 
60 
66 
79 
85 
89 

97 

102 

107 




I, The home apple-tree 



THE APPLE-TREE 



WHERE THERE IS NO APPLE-TREE 

The wind is snapping in the bamboos, knocking to- 
gether the resonant canes and weaving the myriad flexile 
wreaths above them. The palm heads rustle with a brisk 
crinkling music. Great ferns stand in the edge of the 
forest, and giant arums cling their arms about the trunks 
of trees and rear their dim jacks-in-the-pulpit far in the 
branches ; and in the greater distance I know that green 
parrots are flying in twos from tree to tree. The plant 
forms are strange and various, making mosaic of con- 
trasting range of leaf-size and leaf-shape, palm and grass 
and fern, epiphyte and liana and clumpy mistletoe, of 
grace and clumsiness and even misproportion, a tall thick 
landscape all mingled into a symmetry of disorder that 
charms the attention and fascinates the eye. 

It is a soft and delicious air wherein I sit. A torrid 
drowse Is in the receding landscape. The people move 
leisurely, as befits the world where there is no prepara- 
tion for frost and no urgent need of laborious apparel. 
There are tardy bullock-carts, unconscious donkeys, and 
men pushing vehicles. There are odd products and un- 
accustomed cakes and cookies on little stands by the 
•roadside, where the turbaned vendor sits on the ground 
unconcernedly. 

7 



8 THE APPLE-TREE 

There are strange fruits in the carts, on the donkeys 
that move down the hillsides from distant plantations in 
the heart of the jungle, on the trees by winding road and 
thatched cottage, in the great crowded markets in the 
city. I recognize coconuts and mangoes, star-apples and 
custard-apples and cherimoyas, papayas, guavas, ma- 
mones, pomegranates, figs, christophines, and the varied 
range of citrus fruits. There are also great polished 
apples in the markets, coming from cooler regions, tied 
by their stems, good to look at but impossible to relish ; 
and I understand how these people of the tropics think 
the apple an inferior fruit, so successfully do the poor 
varieties stop the desire for more. There are vegetables 
I have never seen before. 

I am conscious of a slowly moving landscape with 
people and birds and beasts of burden and windy vegeta- 
tion, of prospects in which there are no broad smooth 
farm fields with fences dividing them, of scenery full of 
herbage, in which every lineament and action incite me 
and stimulate my desire for more, of days that end sud- 
denly in the blackness of night. 

Yet, somehow, I look forward to the time when I may 
go to a more accustomed place. Either from long asso- 
ciation with other scenes or because of some inexpres- 
sible deficiency in this tropic splendor, I am not satisfied 
even though I am exuberantly entertained. Something 
I miss. For weeks I wondered what single element I 
missed most. Out of the numberless associations of 
childhood and youth and eager manhood it is difficult to 
choose one that is missed more than another. Yet one 
day it came over me startlingly that I missed the apple- 
tree, — the apple-tree, the sheep, and the milch cattle ! 



WHERE THERE IS NO APPLE-TREE 9 

The farm home with its commodious house, its 
greensward, its great barn and soft fields and distant 
woods, and the apple-tree by the wood-shed ; the good 
home at the end of the village with its sward and shrub- 
bery, and apple roof-tree; the orchard, well kept, trim 
and apple-green, yielding its wagon-loads of fruits ; the 
old tree on the hillside, in the pasture where genera- 
tions of men have come and gone and where houses have 
fallen to decay; the odor of the apples in the cellar in 
the cold winter night; the feasts around the fireside, — I 
think all these pictures conjure themselves in my mind 
to tantalize me of home. 

And often in my wanderings I promise myself that 
when I reach home I shall see the apple-tree as I had 
never seen it before. Even its bark and its gnarly trunk 
will hold converse with me, and its first tiny leaves of 
the budding spring will herald me a welcome. Once 
again I shall be a youth with the apple-tree, but feeling 
more than the turbulent afifection of transient youth can 
understand. Life does not seem regular and established 
when there is no apple-tree in the yard and about the 
buildings, no orchards blooming in the May and laden 
in the September, no baskets heaped with the crisp 
smooth fruits; without all these I am still a foreigner, 
sojourning in a strange land. 



II 

THE APPLE-TREE IN THE LANDSCAPE 

The April sun is soft on the broad open fenced fields, 
waking them gently from the long deep sleep of winter. 
Little rills are running full. The grass is newly coolly 
green. Fresh sprouts are in the sod. By copse and high- 
way the shad-bushes salute with their handkerchiefs. 
Apple-trees show tips of verdure. It is good to see the 
early greens of changing spring. It is good to look 
abroad on an apple-tree landscape. 

As to its vegetation, the landscape is low and flat, not 
talL There is a vast uniformity in plant forms, a sub- 
dued and constrained humility. A month later the leaf- 
age will be in glory, but that also will have an aspect of 
sameness and moderation. Perhaps the actual variety 
of species will be greater than in many parts of the 
abounding tropics, and to the careful observer the lux- 
uriance will be as great, although not so big; but as I 
look abroad I am impressed with the economy of the 
prospect. It comes nearer to my powers of assimilation, 
quiets me with a deep satisfaction ; the contrasts are sub- 
dued, the processes grade into each other imperceptibly 
in the land of the lingering twilight. 

In this pros'pect are maples and elms and apple-trees. 
The maples and elms are of the fields and roadsides. The 

10 



IN THE LANDSCAPE 11 

apple-trees are of human habitations and human labor; 
they cluster about the buildings, or stand guard at a 
gate ; they are in plantations made by hands. As I see 
them again, I wonder whether any other plant is so char- 
acteristically a home-tree. 

So is the apple-tree, even when full grown, within the 
reach of children. It can be climbed. Little swings are 
hung from the branches. Its shade is low and familiar. 
It bestows its fruit liberally to all alike. 

The apple is a sturdy tree. Short of trunk and short 
of continuous limb, it is yet a stout and rugged object, 
the indirectness of its branching branches adding to its 
picturesque quality. It is a tree of good structure. Al- 
though its limbs eventually arch to the ground, if left 
to themselves, they yet have great strength. The angul- 
arity of the branching, the frequent forking, the big heal- 
ing or hollow knots with rounding callus-lips, give the 
tree character. Anywhere it would be a marked tree, 
unlike any other. 

The bark on the older surface sheds in short oblong- 
irregular scales or plates that detach perhaps at both ends 
and often at the sides, clinging by the middle until the 
curl loosens them and they fall to the ground. These 
plates or chips are more or less rowed up and down the 
trunk and on the larger branches, yet the apple bark is 
not ridged and furrowed as on the elm. The bark is not 
checked in squares as on old pear-trees nor peeling as 
on cherries. In dry weather, the loose old bark is dark 
brown-gray, often supporting gray lichens, but in rain 
it is soft and nearly black, yielding pleasantly to the 
touch. In the forks, the bark is not so readily cast and 
there the chips may lie in heaps. On the young limbs 



12 THE APPLE-TREE 

and small trunks the bark is tight and close, not splitting 
into seams or furrows with the expansion of the cylinder 
but stretching and throwing off detached flakes and chips. 
Under the chips various insects hide or make some of 
their transformations. There the codlin-moth pupates. 
The old remains of scale insects may be found on the ex- 
terior. In the furrows about the dormant buds the eggs 
of plant-lice pass the winter. 

To destroy these breeding and hiding places, many 
careful apple-growers scrape away the loose bark, being 
careful not to expose the quick living tissue ; and on the 
younger wood the eggs of aphis and other pests, as well 
as cocoons and nymphs, are destroyed by vigorous winter 
spraying. The regular spraying of apple-trees, in the 
different seasons, more or less sterilizes the bark. Many 
forms of canker, due to fungi and bacteria, invade the 
bark, making sunken areas and scars, often so serious 
as to destroy the tree. All these features are discoverable 
in the apple-tree. 

The trunk of the apple-tree is short and stout, usually 
not perfectly cylindrical and not prominently buttressed 
at the base. In old trees it is usually ribbed or ridged, 
sometimes tortuous with spiral-like grooves, often show- 
ing the bulge where the graft was set. The wood is fine- 
grained and of good color, and lends itself well to certain 
kinds of cabinet work and to the turning-lathe for house- 
hold objects ; it should be better known. 

If left to itself, the tree branches near the ground, 
making many strong secondary scaffold trunks ; but the 
plant does not habitually have more than one bole, even 
though it may branch from the very base ; it is a real tree, 
even though small, and not a huge shrub. In the natural 





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1. The apple-tree In the landscape 



IN THE LANDSCAPE 13 

condition, the trunk often rises only a foot or two before 
it is lost in the branches; at other times it may be four 
or six feet high. Under cultivation, the lowest branches 
are usually removed when the tree begins to grow, and 
an evident clean trunk is produced. In Europe and the 
Eastern States, it has been the practice to trim the trunk 
clean to the height of four or six feet ; but in hotter and 
drier regions the trunk is kept short to insure against 
sun-scald ; and with the better tillage implements of the 
present day it may not be necessary to train the heads so 
high. 

In old hill pastures, in many parts of the North, one 
sees curious umbrella forms and other shapes of apple- 
trees, due to browsing by cattle. A little tree gets a start 
in the pasture. When cattle are turned in, they browse 
the tender terminal growth. The plant spreads at the 
base, in a horizontal direction. With the repeated brows- 
ing on top, the tree becomes a dense conical mound. 
Eventually, the leader may get a strong headway, and 
grows beyond the reach of the browsers. As it rises out 
of grasp, it sends off its side shoots, forming a head. The 
cattle browse the under side of this head, as far as they 
are able to reach, causing the tree to assume a grotesque 
hour-glass shape, flat on the under part of the head, with 
a cone of green herbage at the ground. Sometimes pas- 
tures are full of little hummocks of trees that have not 
yet been able to overtop the grazers. 

The winter apple-tree in the free is a reassuring object. 
It has none of the sleekness of many horticultural forms, 
nor the fragility of peaches, sour cherries and plums. It 
stands boldly against the sky, with its elbows at all angles 
and its scaly bark holding the snow. Against evergreens 



14 THE APPLE-TREE 

it shows its ruggedness specially well. It presents forms 
to attract the artist. Even when gnarly and broken, it 
does not convey an impression of decrepitude and decay 
but rather of a hardy old character bearing his burdens. 
In every winter landscape I look instinctively for the 
apple-tree. 

We are so accustomed to the apple-tree as a part of an 
orchard, where it is trimmed into shape and its bolder 
irregularities controlled, that we do not think it has 
beauty when left to itself to grow as it will. An apple- 
tree that takes its own course, as does a pine-tree or an 
oak, is looked on as unkempt and unprofitable and as a 
sorry object in the landscape, advertizing the neglect of 
the owner. Yet if the apple-tree had never borne good 
fruit, we should plant it for its bloom and its pictur- 
esqueness as we plant a hawthorn or a locust-tree. 

In winter and in summer, and in the months between, 
my apple-tree is a great fact. It is a character in the 
population of my scenery, standing for certain human 
emotions. The tree is a living thing, not merely a some- 
thing that bears apples. 



Ill 

THE BUDS ON THE TWIGS 

Now the buds begin to break. The firm winter-buds 
swell. Their scales part. Tips of green appear. Tiny 
leaves come forth, neatly rolled inward, growing as they 
expand, the stalks lengthening. Resurrection is astir in 
the tree. 

Several leaves issue from every bud. From some buds 
arise only leaves ; from others a flower-cluster emerges 
from the leaf-rosette, showing faint color even before it 
expands. Very close together and tight these unopened 
little flowers are packed as they emerge ; if we had looked 
at them with a lens as they lay in the bud in the long 
winter we should understand why ; now they escape their 
bonds and rapidly grow as they are delivered, yet at first 
pressed together by head and stem in their soft gray 
wool. 

Thus are there two kinds of buds on the twig of the 
bearing apple-tree, — the leaf-buds .(sending forth leaves 
only), and the flower-buds (bearing both leaves and 
flowers). And if we wish to analyze more closely, we 
discover two kinds of leaf-buds, — those that send forth 
a rapidly growing shoot bearing the leaves, and those 
from which the leaf-cluster remains practically sessile 
on the branch. These latter, or the strongest and best of 

15 



16 THE APPLE-TREE 

them, will probably give rise to short fruiting spurs and 
the others to elongated leafy branches. 

Before me as I write is an apple limb more than three 
feet long. It has been a vigorous grower, for it is only 
three years old. The years can be readily made out; 
there are two sets of "rings" separating them. You may 
see these rings on all young apple limbs. They represent 
the scars of the scales of the past terminal buds. 

Three years ago my shoot was sent off from its parent 
branch ; that year it grew but four inches, bearing leaves 
on its sides, in the axils of which developed buds for the 
winter and at the end a larger terminal bud. Let us call 
this shoot 1918. Two years ago (1919), whilst I was in 
a distant land, the terminal bud gave rise to a shoot nine- 
teen inches long; two buds near the end of the 1918 shoot 
pushed out clusters of leaves and made spurs about one- 
half inch long; all the other buds, five in number, re- 
mained dormant, and now they are dead and are rapidly 
becoming mere scars. Last year (1920) the terminal bud 
of 1919 gave rise to a shoot fifteen inches long; three 
buds at the base of this two-year (1919) shoot remained 
dormant; fourteen buds produced spurs. It is now the 
spring of 1921 ; the 1920 shoot has four dormant buds at 
its base, ten rosettes of leaves from the other buds, and 
a pushing terminal shoot. 

On my branch this year, therefore, are 5 plus 3 plus 4, 
or 12 dormant buds of all the years ; 2 plus 14 plus 10, or 
26 spurs ; 1 terminal bud continuing the onward growth. 

It is evident that the last two years were good ones 
for my apple limb, for the growths were long (19 and 
15 inches) and most of the buds produced spurs. The 
result is evidenced also in the fact that the limb is this 



J 




3. The bloom of the apple-tree 



THE BUDS ON THE TWIGS 17 

year laden with potential bloom. On 1918 the two spurs 
bear flowers, one of them only a single bloom and the 
other five blooms. On 1919 twelve of the fourteen spurs 
are bearing flowers in the following numbers : 5 flowers, 
5, 5, 7, 5, 6, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5=63 flowers. On 1920 are no 
spurs bearing flowers, but the terminal bud (as is 
frequent on vigorous young trees) bears five flowers. 
Here, therefore, on this yard of three-year-old twig are 
seventy-four blossoms. 

But there will not be seventy-four fruits ; some of the 
flowers are small and weak ; others, as the petals fall, 
show unmistakable signs of failing. A few of them show 
the plump form of an embryo apple : I think there are 
a score of such promises. But I know that others will 
fail later from physiological causes, and others probably 
from onslaught of insects or disease or from accidents. 
If six fair fruits mature on a branch like this, the crop 
will be good ; and probably the branch would not have 
vigor enough to set as many fruit-buds the following 
year or to bear as many fruits. 

It is good to watch the opening of the apple bloom : 
pink buds swelling and puffing out each day, the woolly 
stems elongating, the five overlapping incurving petals 
spreading and growing big, the stamens, about twenty, 
straightening up and lengthening their filaments that are 
attached on the flower-rim ; the big light yellow anthers 
shedding pollen; the five green styles in the center. In 
some flowers the styles do not develop, and wc have one 
reason why many flowers are sterile. 

The flower-clusters differ much among themselves, 
in size of parts, number of flowers, color; on some trees 
the flowers appear in advance of most of the leafage, but 



18 THE APPLE-TREE 

usually they are coincident with the leaves. Sometimes 
the flower-stems or peduncles are branched, bearing two 
or three flowers, and in that case there may be a small 
green leaf or bract where the fork arises. The placing 
of the petals in the bud at the epoch of expansion may 
differ in two flowers on the same tree. One petal may 
stand guard outside the others and free from them, both 
edges uncovered, while the remaining petals are spiral 
with one edge under and one edge over; or there may 
be two guard petals, one on either side ; or sometimes 
all the petals may be spiral, one margin out, one margin 
in; in some cases all the petals stand free as the flower 
is expanding, with no margin interlapping. Sometimes 
one petal is missing, and again the petals may be six. 

This infinite variety within the bonds of so great 
regularity lends a subtle charm to natural objects, that 
is wholly absent in man's perfected machine-work. Man 
aims at uniformity, two and two alike ; nature aims at 
endless difference, every object or even every member 
of an object having its own character. Much of man's 
energy is expended in trying to overcome the diverseness 
of nature. 

Gradually and slowly the flower balloons enlarge and 
puff themselves up, the petals standing together at their 
tips ; all the variety is united into a harmony of exub- 
erance, color and form ; then one day there is a shower 
of genial rain, a warm sun, birds in the air, bees released, 
grasses soft and lush, and behold ! the apple-tree is in 
bloom, — a great heavenly mound of white and pink ex- 
haling a faint delicious breath. Then the pulses stir, 
the dogs bark at the edges of the wood, the fields call, 
the scented winds lead on forever. 



IV 



THE WEEKS BETWEEN 
THE FLOWER AND THE FRUIT 

The petals expand broadly, usually losing most of 
their pink. The blade is oblong and rounded at the end, 
at first cupped and then nearly flat, three-fourths of an 
inch long, narrowed at the base into a short stem-like 
part and usually hairy there, the edges perhaps wavy 
but entire. The expanse of the flower may be one and 
one-half to two inches. The brush of stamens, erect in 
the center, sheds its pollen and the anthers collapse. 

Then the petals fall, like flakes of snow, borne often 
by the wind. There remain the stout woolly flower- 
stems an inch or more long and bearing minute dry 
bracts, with the young fruit at the summit topped by 
the five recurving woolly sepals and the pencil of stamens 
and styles. The bloom being gone, the flowering systern 
of the apple is thenceforth little observed. Not until the 
fruit begins to color do we come back to the apple-tree 
to look at it closely; yet in these intervening weeks some 
of the most interesting transformations take place, and 
on the exact observance of them depends to a large 
extent one's success in the rearing and saving of a good 
crop of apples. 

Here is the flower of the apple-tree (Fig. 3). It is a 

19 



20 



THE APPLE-TREE 



comely blossom, fragrant and pinky white, flatly spread 
to the sky, carrying the spirit of the cool of the spring. 
What concerns us now, however, is the cluster of stamens 
and pistils in the center, for these organs are directly 
concerned in the production of the fruit. The petals soon 
fall, but the remains of these interior organs persist, 
even unto the ripening of the fruit. 

The anther is attached at the back of its base or 
middle to the top of the filament in the suture separating 
the two large cells. These anther-cells split along the 
outer margins, releasing the pollen-grains. 

In the center of the ring of stamens are the five style- 
branches, which are united at the base into a short hairy 
column; the column is borne on the ovary, which is 
sunken deep into the receptacle or 
stem (Fig. 4). It is down these 
style-branches that the pollen-tube 
passes on its way to the ovules or 
embryo seeds. The top of the style 
is expanded into a cupped stigma 
on which are many glutinous points. 
One can observe the browning and 
ripening of the stigma after pollen 
has been deposited by wind, bees 
or other agencies. When the ovules 
are fertilized, the forming fruit en- 
larges regularly unless it meets with misfortune or is 
crowded out for lack of room and nourishment. 

If one cuts across the ovary or embryo fruit below 
the recurving sepals, one will see under a lens that it is 




4. Longitudinal 
section of the flower. 




THE FLOWER AND THE FRUIT 21 

neatly five-celled (Fig. 5). In each cell 

are two ovules; these, if all goes well, 

will ripen into ten seeds. These five 

cells comprise most of the diameter in 

^ . - the cross-section ; but as the ovary en- 

5. Cross-section of . -' 

the ovary. larges and the young fruit grows, one 

may see that the inner part comprising 

the cells begins to have a character of its own and to be 

differentiated from the surrounding flesh. 

The "blossom" falls. In reality only the petals fall. 
What is left is well shown in Fig. 6. Here remain the 
upstanding stamens with the empty anthers, and in the 
center one could see the five styles if the specimen were 
in hand. Here also are the calyx-lobes, widely spreading 
and even recurved. The photograph for Fig. 6 was taken 
May 3. On May 17 another cluster was photographed 
from the same tree (Fig. 7). Three of the flowers have 
produced sturdy young apples. The stems or pedicels 
have become stouter, and they begin to spread. Note 
that the calyx now is closed, the old stamens protruding, 
a circumstance that will have special significance when 
we become acquainted with the codlin-moth. Note also 
that one flower has failed, and remains as it was two 
weeks earlier ; it will soon fall. The young apples begin 
to take shape. They show a glow of red on the cheek. 
They are fuzzy all over. One of them is already injured 
on one side, having been stung by a curculio or other 
insect: there are keen senses about the apple-tree. 

Two weeks later (May 31) still another cluster was 
taken from the same tree (Fig. 8). Here are three fruits 
erect on their stems ; one of them is more than an inch 



22 THE APPLE-TREE 

in diameter either way, sturdy and unblemished ; another 
shows deformity due to insect puncture; the third re- 
mains small and presently will drop. A scar in the leaf- 
axil marks the failure of another flower. Four blossoms 
were in this cluster, but only one fruit now has a chance 
to come to uninjured maturity, and two have already 
failed. The big apple has now lost most of its fuzziness 
and begins to assume a delicate "bloom" on its surface; 
the smallest one — the one that soon will perish — still 
holds some of its fuzz. A section of this smallest fruit 
discloses empty cells ; apparently it was not fertilized. 

Another two weeks have passed. It is June 14th. 
From the same tree is taken the photograph. Fig. 9. 
Here is a big apple, 1>^ inch in diameter; and there is a 
dead shrivelled fruit that dropped when I touched it. Of 
the several flowers in the cluster, all have failed but one. 
This one fruit has now passed the danger of the blossom- 
end infection by the codlin-moth and it has no blemishes. 
The many whitish spots characteristic of the variety are 
now conspicuous all over the surface. The ribs begin to 
show. There is a faint blush on the upper side. The 
fuzz has disappeared and the bloom is becoming evident. 
The calyx is tightly closed, although the tips of the sepals 
are spread widely. The stem is stout. The weight of 
the apple inclines it nearly to the horizontal. Yet this 
good apple is not symmetrical ; one side is larger than 
the other. I cut it crosswise and find two cells on the 
larger side developing two strong seeds each, whilst 
those on the smaller side have a single seed each and 
one of these seeds is small and perhaps would not have 
matured. The fleshy part of the apple, outside the core, 
now occupies about as much of the diameter as the core 



THE FLOWER AND THE FRUIT 23 

itself and much more than one-half the bulk of the iruit. 
Already my apple, now half grown, shows many of its 
distinctive characteristics. 

Yet another fortnight has come and gone, and it is 
June 28th. It has been good "growing weather." Sum- 
mer is here, full-orbed, regal, bringing the abundance of 
the earth. Here are two stout apples hanging on their 
stems (Fig. 10), for they are now too heavy to be held 
erect. The larger fruit is a trifle more than two 
inches in diameter. The feature spots are now still more 
prominent on these apples, the ribs more pronounced, 
the blush against the sun more warm. Both these fruits, 
from one spur, will mature; but the smaller one will be 
blemished, for the apple-scab fungus has established it- 
self on the crown and about the calyx. Already the 
growth is checked in that area, and the apple looks 
flattened. There is no evidence in either apple of codlin- 
moth invasion. The adjoining spur, not clearly shown in 
the photograph, is barren ; it gave no flowers this year, 
and it shows no indication of a blossom-bud for next 
year. The leaves are thick and vigorous, yet they bear 
marks of insect injury and one of them has been ex- 
tensively skeletonized. On the whole, however, the fruits 
have the mastery, and they now make a brave show. 

July has passed this way. Tomorrow it will be 
August. The odor of apples is now in my tree. There 
are big striped apples on the ground, plucked by the 
wind, the hold loosened by bugs for they too have felt 
the fullness of July. Three apples, one of them three 
inches through and two and one-half inches high, and 
the others nearly as big, hang at the level of my eyes. 
You may see them in Fig. 11. Here rises again my boy- 



24 THE APPLE-TREE 

hood spent in an orchard now passed away, as father 
and mother have passed, as playmates have fallen one 
by one, the old place holding only memories. Here is 
my boyhood because the earth is always young and 
repeats her miracles for the children by my side as it did 
for me so many many years ago. Yet the miracles are 
greater now than they were then. They have more 
meaning. Now are they part of some great order. They 
are not separate. Without moving my feet, I lay my 
hands on apples, Virginia creeper, asparagus, marigold, 
sweet sultan, oxalis, plantain, crab-grass, white clover, 
all growing securely in one place, and everyone like unto 
itself alone. Here is the everlasting miracle before my 
eyes, and all miracles are mysteries. Once I thought I 
should understand such things when I was "grown up,'* 
but I find myself still a boy. 

These three apples on the last of the days of July 
look fair and sound, partly hidden in the leaves, the deep 
red colors covering them in broad splashed stripes and 
relieved by light dots. Yet when I raise the leaves or 
when I lift the apples apart, I find the burrows of insects. 
They know that these apples are good. It is astonishing 
how nature covers up the wounds, how she conceals the 
sore places, and how fair she makes everything look. 
Were it not that she covers the depredations of man, the 
earth would not long remain habitable by him. 

Summer is ended. Today the sun is on the equator, 
and we are at the equinox when nights are equal to the 
days, as the word testifies. The harvest is over. The 
apples are no more. Yet the tree still is active and pre- 
paring for another year (Fig. 12). The spurs are now 
thick and stout, bearing sturdy hard leaves. The bud in 



THE FLOWER AND THE FRUIT 25 

the center is a big one, already recognized as a fruit-bud : 
here is the promise of speckled, furrowed, striped apples 
next August. Thereby I learn that it is not enough to 
be good to the tree in the year in which I desire its fruit : 
I must begin the year before, and the year before that, 
and even back at the time when the tree is planted ; and 
if the tree at planting-time is not a good tree, it will be 
at a disadvantage perhaps all its life long. 

Finally the apple is ripe and ready. At the stem end 
is the "cavity," a depression, deep or shallow, according 
to variety, in which the stem is set. At the blossom end 
is the **basin," also with the characteristics of the variety 
as to depth and width and contour, in which the calyx- 
lobes persist, and inside the calyx are the remains of 
the dead stamens and styles ; the calyx may be "closed" 
or "open," the character being a mark of the particular 
variety. 

Cut the apple through the center lengthwise (Fig. 13) ; 
note the curved outline of the core (the pistil) extending 
half or more across the fruit ; if you do not see this out- 
line, cut an apple until you do ; carefully open the five 
cells or compartments and within the parchment walls 
find the two seeds attached by their points which are 
directed toward the stem end ; perhaps one of the seeds 
has failed, but probably a cavity marks its place ; perhaps 
both seeds have failed ; perhaps the cell has more than 
two seeds. 

Cut an apple cross-wise: note the five radiating cells 
of the core, the number and attachment of the seeds; 
note the ten points, imbedded in the flesh, marking the 
outline of the core. Cut an apple cross-wise above the 
core and beneath it ; note where these points vanish 



26 THE APPLE-TREE 

and try to harmonize them with the core-outline as seen 
in the lengthwise section; probably you will discover 
why you may not see the core-outline in all the length- 
wise sections you make. Before you leave the fruit, note 
whether single seeds in a cell are the same shape as the 
two seeds in a cell. 

The flesh outside the core-outline is interpreted to be 
stem structure rather than pistil structure. Sometimes 
an apple bears a scale-like leaf on its exterior, suggesting 
that the outer part of the fruit is stem. The older morphol- 
ogists interpreted the apple flower to comprise a hol- 
lowed calyx (calyx-tube) inside which is the pistil and 
on the rim of which are the petals and stamens. The 
structure now is regarded as a hollowed receptacle or 
stem (hypanthium), with the pistil inside, the petals and 
stamens on its rim. We noted in the flower that the 
ovary part of the pistil is solidly imbedded in this re- 
ceptacle, but that the five styles are free. The pear and 
quince are of similar structure, but the peach, plum and 
cherry are simple ripened pistils. 

Here, in this chapter, we have discovered some of the 
epochs in the life of the apple. Usually we let the imagi- 
nation run only to the mature fruit, thinking of the har- 
vest, but in all the weeks before the harvest the apple 
has been growing and taking form. As these weeks 
have not been blank to the apple-tree, so shall they not 
be blank to me. 



THE BRUSH PILE 

Today I visited the brush pile back of the orchard. 
Here the trimmings of the winter are placed, waiting to 
be burned when dry. How many are the archives that 
will be destroyed ! Here are histories in every bud and 
twig and scar, of the seasons, of the accidents and deaths, 
the records of the tree as there are records of families. 

These records are not written in numbers or in let- 
ters, nor yet in hieroglyphs ; yet are they understandable. 
Alphabet is not needed, and the key is simple. 

From the brush pile of records I took one. I must 
describe it in part by a picture (Fig. 14). On the living 
trees at this writing the petals mostly have fallen and the 
leaves are nearly full grown. This branch was cut in 
winter. It has lain in the snow and rain, putting forth 
no flowers or leaves. Yet we can read it. 

It is May, 1921. The terminal shoot is obviously of 
1920; we shall name it No. 1. It is a foot long, smooth 
and glossy, terminating at the base (o) in a ''ring" and at 
a short stub or branchlet. If we count the buds on all 
sides of the shoot and at the tip we find them to be 13. 
The largest one is at the tip, and they are mostly suc- 
cessively smaller toward the base. Apparently the 
growth-energy was expended in the upper parts of the 

27 



28 



THE APPLE-TREE 



twig, making large full buds. In fact, the three or four 
lowermost buds are scarcely developed and would not 
grow unless the limb were broken off above them ; they 
are dormant buds. 




[4. A three-year record. — In a leisure hour, trace the history of 
these parts; it will open your eyes. 



THE BRUSH PILE 29 

Looking along the shoot, I find that every six buds 
stand in the same line: the sixth bud is over the first, 
seventh over the second, eighth over the third. If I 
were to fasten a string to bud No. 1 and wind it around 
the stem to my left, passing over every bud until I had 
reached the sixth, I should find that it had made two cir- 
cuits of the stem (passed twice around it) and had passed 
over five spaces between buds. This is the leaf-arrange- 
ment or phyllotaxy of the apple-tree, expressed by the 
fraction 2/5. The space between two buds is two-fifths 
of a diameter, and two circuits (ten-fifths) must be 
passed before a bud comes over the one from which we 
started. The 2/5 leaf-arrangement obtains on cherry, 
peach, apricot, pear, raspberry and many others ; but a 
very different order is that of the linden, grape, currant, 
lilies, elm, maple. 

We cannot understand this simple unbranched ter- 
minal twig (No. 1) until we know what took place last 
year. A year ago, in the spring of 1920, a terminal bud 
that had formed in 1919 expanded and gave rise to this 
rapidly growing shoot. By the end of May or early June 
this shoot had grown to twelve inches long, for the 
growth in length on the twigs of trees is usually com- 
pleted that early. This shoot bore leaves on the 2/5 ar- 
rangement; in the axil of every leaf was a bud, the 
strongest buds being with the strongest leaves at the 
middle and top of the shoot ; in the autumn of 1920 these 
leaves fell, but the buds remained, persisted the winter, 
and were ready to "grow" in the early spring of 1921. 
We see them on No. 1 (Fig. 14). 

In 1921 these buds on No. 1, then, would have grown. 
New leaves would have come from the bud itself; in fact. 



30 



THE APPLE-TREE 




THE BRUSH PILE 31 

the winter buds of the apple are packed with miniature 
leaves and sometimes with flowers as well. The shoot com- 
ing out of the bud may remain very short, constituting a 
''spur," or grow with long internodes, making a slender twig. 
Fig. 15 shows a branch with new elongated growth, b to a, 
and a shoot or spur (c) arising from a bud of the previous 
year. Note the ''ring," or division beyond b, marking the 
turn of the year. 

It will be noted in Fig. 14 that the buds are of two 
shapes and sizes, such as a, a, a, representing one kind and 
b, b, the other kind. The former, small and pointed, are 
leaf-buds ; from them will arise a shoot bearing only leaves. 
The latter, b, large and rounded and usually more fuzzy, 
are flower-buds (fruit-buds) : from them will arise a short 
shoot bearing leaves and a cluster of flowers ; and we hope 
that at least one of the flowers will set fruit. 

We are now ready to resume our lesson with the branch 
before us. We have identified the slender terminal part, 
No. 1, as the growth of 1920. We are now to account for 
all the remaining buds and branchlets. 

If No. 1 grew in 1920, then the main shoot of No. 2 
grew in 1919, from the point o o. It is also one foot long. 
Near its base are four small buds that remained dormant in 
1920. There are nine branches {d) of various lengths be- 
sides the terminal shoot No. 1, all of which grew in 1920, 
for they are naturally a year younger than the main axis 
from which they arise; these branches are the same age as 
No. 1, with buds that would have produced shoots in 1921. 
But the terminal buds of eight of these lateral shoots (all 
but the lowermost) bear blossom-buds at the end; note 
their size and shape. Had not the branch been cut, these 
buds would have bloomed in 1921 ; the eight of them 



32 THE APPLE-TREE 

would have produced probably forty to fifty flowers; per- 
haps two or three good fruits would have resulted. Note 
that two of the lateral branches or spurs are short and 
weak: these would soon perish. The No. 2 branch has a 
dead end (^) ; in some way the terminal bud was destroyed, 
and No. 1 sprang from a lateral bud beneath it, changing 
the direction of growth. 

If No. 2 grew in 1919, then No. 3 grew in 1918. It 
also grew about one foot in length, showing that the condi- 
tions in the three years must have been very uniform. There 
are remains of five dormant buds at its base. There are 
seven side branches. As the main axis is three years old, so 
these lateral shoots are two years old ; they are the same 
age as the axis No. 2. The lower one (s) grew less than 
an inch in 1919, and made a fruit-bud ; in 1920 it blossomed 
and one fruit set as is shown by the square scar at the end ; 
as the scar is small and the twig weak, we are safe in 
assuming that the apple was very small or else did not 
mature. A bud formed at the side of s to continue the 
growth of the spur next year (1921), but it is a leaf -bud; 
apparently there was not sufficient energy to bear flowers 
and to make a fruit-bud ; so there would have been no more 
fruit on this spur earlier than 1922 : thus do we see that the 
alternate bearing of the apple-tree may have some of its 
origin in the fruit-spur. 

The side spur / produced a terminal blossom-bud in 1919. 
In 1920 six flowers opened, — I could count the scars. One of 
the flowers produced a fruit, as I tell by the square scar at 
the end; the thickened stem also indicates fruit-bearing. 
The side bud in this case is a fruit-bud, but it is small and 
weak and is probably incapable of producing a fruit. There 
are no strong leaf-buds to take up the work, and this 



THE BRUSH PILE 33 

spur (/) would probably soon have died, as also would 
spur s. 

The side shoot g grew to h in 1919 and made a flower- 
bud. In 1920 this bud gave blossoms and one fruit resulted ; 
the scar is prominent and there is an enlargement of the 
tissue indicating that the fruit probably attained good size ; 
in 1920 also, two side spurs were formed each with weak 
blossom-buds, also a terminal shoot (beyond h) with leaf- 
bud at the end. 

The other shoots have similar histories : the long shoot 
i bore a fruit-bud at k in 1919 and a fruit in 1920; in 1920 it 
also made three lateral shoots and a terminal shoot, with 
flower-buds terminating two of them. Shoot / bore flowers 
at its point in 1920 but did not carry the fruit to maturity ; 
it also made two side growths and one terminal growth, all 
terminated by flower-buds, to be blown in 1921. The shoot 
w is a short spur that made a flower-bud in 1919 and in 1920 
carried three little fruits for a time and made a flower-bud 
in 1920. Shoot n remained very short in 1919, making a 
terminal leaf-bud; in 1920 it grew two inches and made a 
weak flower-bud. 

If shoot No. 3 grew in 1918, then No. 4 grew in 1917; 
but the branch is severed and I cannot trace the record 
farther. We could trace the family history many years if 
we had the unpruned tree before us. 

Here, then, in my yard-long manuscript are forty bud- 
records on the main axis, counting the terminals on No. 2 
and No. 3. I can find record of 144 buds on the side shoots. 
This makes a grand total of 184 buds. There is a total 
growth in length of 108 inches, or 9 feet. Each of the buds 
that has already "grown" has produced an average of prob- 
ably ten leaves, or say 340 leaves in total. If there were an 



34 THE APPLE-TREE 

average of five flowers to the cluster, then abotit 150 flowers 
would have been carried on my branch, with the potential- 
ity of 150 fruits; but in fact not more than three or four 
maturing fruits would have been produced m these years: 
and I should think this a good proportion as blossoms and 
apples go. Certainly the branch has done its part. There 
have been three eventful years. 

I would not have my reader to suppose that one may 
always distinguish leaf-buds and fruit-buds at a glance. I 
may be mistaken in some of the above determinations, but 
they are essentially correct for I have the twig before 
me. In some varieties of apples the differences between 
the two kinds of buds are less marked. The certain way 
is to dissect the bud : one may then see what it contains. 

It now remains to determine how the branch was placed 
in the tree. It must have been upright or very nearly so, 
for the main axis is essentially straight and the branchlets 
are about equally developed on all sides ; moreover, there 
is no indication in the bark that one exposure was the 
"weather side." The big twig i apparently found a light 
and unoccupied space into which to develop, but its exten- 
sion is not greatly out of proportion. I suppose, however, 
that my branch was not topmost in the tree ; there is no in- 
dication in very long growth or strong upward tendency of 
the branchlets to mark the branch as a "leader." 

Years ago I became fascinated with the study of knots 
and knot-holes in the timber of wood-piles. They are ex- 
cellent records of the events in the life of trees. In print 
I have tried to show what they mean, I also worked out 
the life-histories of twigs and published them in nature- 
study leaflets and elsewhere. Hundreds of children were 
interested in the twigs and buds, finding them unusual, every 



THE BRUSH PILE 35 

one of them a different story, and yet not difficult to read. 
These lessons gave meaning to trees and seasons. Such 
observations have always meant much to me, even when 
made in the most casual way in the midst of constraining 
activities. And now in this later day I come back to a bare 
twig with all the joy of youth. The records of the years 
are in these piles of brush. 



VI 

THE PRUNING OF THE APPLE-TREE 

We have found that not all the buds grow. We also 
know that some of the spurs and shoots perish, not alone 
from accident but from defeat in the struggle to live. 
The chances of success are relatively few. The pruning 
process begins early in the life of the tree, and it con- 
tinues ceaselessly until the end. 

To the apple-tree in the wild, strict pruning is the 
assurance of success. No tree can reach maturity unless 
more parts perish than are able to live. The young forest 
tree has branchlets and leaves along its side and at the top. 
All these perish as the trunk rises, often leaving marks 
on the bark, curls in the wood, and knot-holes large and 
small. Thousands of perished buds and branches are the 
price of a straight bole and great clear sheets of boards. 
Yet these perished parts bore their burden in their day and 
time, and contributed to the ultimate success : there could 
have been no tree without them. 

Any tree-top discloses the pruning in action if one 
looks intently. Part of it is recorded in the buds that 
never put forth a leaf ; more of it in little shoots left be- 
hind ; and there are large and small limbs, dead and dying, 
yellowing apparently before their time, hanging on till 
the last hold is broken. Were it not for the benevolent 

36 



THE PRUNING OF THE APPLE-TREE Z7 

processes of decay, the ground would be strewn with the 
fallen parts accumulating through the years. 

In nature, the great result is to yield abundant quan- 
tity of seeds, that the species may propagate itself after 
its kind. Man may desire fruits relatively few, but large 
of size and excellent of quality, without spot or blemish ; 
this means greater opportunity and care to the single 
fruit. Pruning is essential, to converge the energy of the 
plant into fewer branches, to give the fruits space and 
light, to increase the efficiency of measures for the con- 
trol of diseases and insects. Part of the pruning con- 
sists in removing certain branches, and part of it in elim- 
inating the fruits themselves by the careful process of 
thinning. 

The pruning of nature is fortuitous. The tree has 
the irregularity and abandon of the picturesque. The 
pruning of man is for a different end, and it produces the 
comely well-proportioned tree of the orchards. The tree 
becomes a manipulated subject, comforting to the eye of 
the thrifty pomologist. 

Branch-pruning is essentially the removal of super- 
fluous branches, — those that crowd, that cross each other, 
that are so placed as to be profitless, that are in the way, 
that are injured or diseased. For the most part, the 
branches should be removed when they are small; but 
it is not possible to foresee all that may be needed in the 
training of the tree and, therefore, the frequent advice to 
prune only with a hand-knife cannot be followed. One 
needs a sharp pruning-saw and sometimes a chisel on a 
long handle. Usually it is not necessary to remove 
branches more than an inch or one and one-half inch in 
diameter if pruning is carefully practiced every year ; but 



38 THE APPLE-TREE 

sometimes even well-pruned trees must be shaped, cor- 
rected and improved by the cutting of larger branches. 

Pruning is usually best performed in early spring. 
The branch should be cut close to the main limb or 
trunk and parallel v^^ith it, leaving no stub ; the healing 
process is then likely to proceed more rapidly. The 
vv^ound should be smooth and clean, v^ithout breaks, 
spHnters or splits; the knot-holes in logs and trunks are 
usually the consequence of long ''stubs" and torn injured 
parts. The tree is to be left shapely, with a uniform dis- 
tribution of branches, plenty of fruit-bearing wood, easy 
to spray and from which to pick the fruit, of the form 
characteristic of the variety. 

In all the usual customary pruning of the apple-tree, 
dressing of the wounds is not necessary. It is much more 
important to give the added attention to the proper mak- 
ing of the wounds and the thoughtful choice of the parts 
to be removed. Wounds two inches and more in diameter 
may be protected with good paint, so that they will not 
check and therefore not hold water, until the callus covers 
them. Good judgment in pruning is more profitable than 
recipes to repair damage. 

Fruit-pruning, or thinning, is the removing of so much 
fruit, when it is small, as will allow the remainder to 
mature to its best and constitute a maximum yield ; it 
reduces the quantity of inferior fruit, lessens the number 
of culls and the labor at packing time, conserves the 
energy of the tree by preventing the maturity of great 
numbers of seeds, diminishes diseases and pests. The 
overloading of the tree not only imposes a heavy tax on 
its vitality but is likely to break the limbs and to work 
much physical damage. 




6. May 3— When the petals have fallen 




7. May ly—When the young fruits begin to show 



THE PRUNING OF THE APPLE-TREE 39 

Thinning may consist in removing part of the fruit 
in the cluster (in the case of varieties that tend to mature 
more than one fruit from each flov^er-cluster), in pick- 
ing all the fruits from certain clusters or pairs of clusters, 
or in cutting aw^ay some of the fruit-spurs before blos- 
soming time. 

The removal of the fruit itself is usually performed 
after the "Ji^^e-drop," w^hen the extent of the crop is 
evident. The fruits are pulled off by hand or cut with 
thinning-shears, the latter practice being the better since 
it is not so likely to break the fruit-spurs. The least 
promising fruits are taken away and the remaining apples 
are left at least five or six inches apart in most varieties. 
The extent of thinning must be governed by the variety, 
thrift of the tree, result desired, and other conditions. 
To secure the best results, the apples should be thinned 
when still small. 

Thinning by early-spring removal of fruit-spurs is a 
very special practice. It is employed on dwarf trees and 
on those specially trained. It should be undertaken only 
by a careful and experienced man. It is not to be inferred 
that the fruit of the apple is all borne on spurs, for some 
of it may be derived from terminal buds on the new axial 
growths or even from lateral buds; but the spurs are 
conspicuous and readily recognized. Of course the or- 
dinary pruning of the tree removes fruit-bearing wood 
and is therefore a thinning process. 

Within sensible limits, therefore, pruning is an in- 
vigorating process in the sense that it deflects the energy 
to remaining parts of the tree. What is called too heavy 
pruning, whereby the tree throws out abundance of 
water-sprouts, is illustration of this fact: the tree is 



40 THE APPLE-TREE 

thrown into heavy growth of adventitious shoots. The 
tree may not produce more pounds of substance, or even 
more total feet in length, but new energy is developed in 
certain parts. 

In the restoration, or so-called renovation, of old 
neglected trees, the two primary considerations are to 
prune vigorously and to till and fertilize the land. Some- 
times old trees must be mended as explained in Chapter 
XIII. Of course they must be sprayed for what ails 
them. If the variety is poor, the tree may be top-grafted 
(Chapter XII). In some cases, it is hardly possible to 
make neglected trees bear satisfactorily, for they were 
never of value : there is nothing to restore. It may be a 
question of soil and location, of lack of pollination, of 
trees so weak or so misshapen that effort on them is 
wasted. But tillage, pruning, spraying, should produce 
worth-while results in most cases. 

In the care of the fruit-tree there is no practice which 
brings the grower into such intimate knowledge of the 
plant as that of pruning and thinning. The operator sees 
the tree as a whole, taking it all in ; then he sees it in 
small detail in all its parts, even to the spurs and buds. 
With simple good tools, sharp and keen, and with a 
practiced eye, he applies a deft and swift handicraft, cut- 
ting true, making a fair clean wound, leaving the tree 
comely and ready for its highest effort. The pride of 
good workmanship may find expression. The operator 
feels also the sense of mastery that is in him, whereby 
he corrects the tree, removes the wayward parts, keeps 
and encourages all that is best. To engage in this kind of 
education requires that one approaches the work with due 
preparation of mind and I think also with consecration 
of heart. 



VII 



MAINTAINING THE HEALTH AND ENERGY 
OF THE APPLE-TREE 

The apple-tree starts life fresh and vigorous. It 
grows rapidly. The shoots are long and straight. The 
wood is smooth and fair and supple. The leaves are 
usually large. It is good to see the young trees acquire 
size and take shape. 

Room in the ground and in the air is ample with the 
young apple-tree. It is free to grow. Probably the 
ground was newly prepared and tilled when the tree was 
planted ; at least, a hole was dug and fine good earth 
was placed about the roots. Probably insects had not 
found permanent encampment on the tree. It had been 
well pruned, so that it carried the minimum of superfluous 
and competing parts. 

But in time the difficulties come. The tree probably 
slows down. It becomes too thick of branches. The land 
is not tilled. It is not manured. Insects and fungi 
make headway. The tree overbears. As the years go 
on, the tree is thrown into alternate bearing, one year a 
crop too heavy, one year a crop too light. The tree be- 
comes broken, diseased, gnarly, unshapely. 

We have seen that the fruit-spur in bearing is likely 
to make a leaf-bud for the next year's activities rather 
than a flower-bud. It is assumed that the making of a 

41 



42 THE APPLE-TREE 

flower-bud requires more energy than the making of a 
plain leaf-bud ; if this is true, there may not be energy 
enough to carry a flower-cluster and to make a new 
flower-bud at the same time. But if the tree is in proper 
vigor, is well fed, protected from noxious organisms, not 
allowed to overbear, it should have sufficient energy to 
make a crop every year, frosts and accidents excepted. 
It is assumed, of course, that self-sterile varieties have 
good pollinizing varieties near them ; it is always well 
to plant two or more kinds near together. Whether the 
continuity of bearing is exhibited on the same fruit-spurs 
or whether there may be an alternation in the spurs on 
the same tree, is of no moment in this discussion. It is 
enough to say that there is no reason in the nature of the 
case why an apple-tree should bear only every other 
year; it is probably a question of nutrition. 

The first essential to continued health and vigor is to 
start with a strong unblemished tree. It is to be planted 
before its vitality is lessened by exposure and hard usage. 
The more direct the transfer from nursery to orchard, the 
better. It is to be placed in good ground, well drained 
and deeply spaded or plowed. The apple-tree thrives on 
many kinds of land, but light sand, hard clay, and muck 
are equally to be avoided. "Good corn land" is com- 
monly considered to be good apple land. Certain soils 
and regions are particularly adaptable to commercial 
apple-growing, but the amateur may plant quite inde- 
pendently of this fact. The observant man notes the 
many conditions under which the apple-tree may be 
grown with satisfaction. 

If the land is not uniformly prepared, then the hole 
dug for the tree should be larger than demanded by 



THE HEALTH AND ENERGY OF THE TREE 43 

Spread of roots, and the earth fined in the bottom of it. 
Trees should be planted when perfectly dormant, prefer- 
ably in spring, at least in the northern parts. 

The roots should be cut back to sound unsplintered 
wood, and very long roots may well be shortened. The 
reader is aware that roots have no regular order or 
arrangement as do the buds from which branches arise. 
It is not necessary to try to shape the root-system to 
any formal regularity. 

As a good part of the root-system is destroyed when 
the tree is dug, so is the top reduced to insure something 
like a balance. Half or more of the top, on a three-year- 
old tree, is cut away, the long growths being shortened 
to perhaps three or four good buds. If limbs are left to 
form the framework of the future top, they should be 
alternate with each other at some distance apart so that 
weak crotches do not form. 

The tree is planted snugly, the earth being filled 
among the roots so that no air-holes remain. The tree 
is shaken up and down to settle the earth densely. Once 
or twice in filling, the earth is packed with the feet. The 
purpose is to keep the tree firm and stifif against winds, 
and to give all its roots close contact with the earth. 
Properly planted, so that it will not whip or dry out, the 
tree gets a hold quickly and begins to grow strongly. 
The first start-ofT of the tree is important. 

Apple-trees are held in vigor by plenty of room. For 
the standard varieties in regular orchards, the recom- 
mended distance either way is 40 feet, or 35 x 40 feet. 
Some varieties may go as close as 30 feet ; and in regions 
(as parts of central and western North America) in which 
the trees are not expected to attain such great size as in 



44 THE APPLE-TREE 

the eastern country, the planting may be even less than 
this of the upright-growing kinds. The spaces between 
the trees may be utilized for a few years with other crops, 
even with other fruits, as peaches or berries. Orchardists 
sometimes plant smaller-growing and early-bearing vari- 
eties of apples between the regular trees as "fillers," tak- 
ing them out as the room is needed. Of course all kinds 
of double cropping require that extra attention be given 
to the tilling and fertilizing of the plantation. 

The general advice for the growing of strong apple- 
trees is to give the land good tillage from the first and 
to withhold other cropping after the trees come into 
profitable bearing. Clean tillage for the first part of the 
season and the raising of a cover-crop in the latter part, 
to be plowed under, is a standard and dependable pro- 
cedure. Trees live long in continuous sod and they may 
thrive, but they may be expected to show gains under 
tillage. Vast areas of apple plantings are in sod, but this 
of itself does not demonstrate the desirability of the sod 
practice. Allowing trees to remain in sod usually leads 
to neglect. 

There is a modification of sod-practice in some parts 
of the country that gives excellent results, under certain 
conditions. The grass is cut and allowed to lie, not being 
removed for hay. Manure and fertilizer are added as top- 
dressing, as needed. This method is known as the "sod 
mulch system." It is not a practice of partial neglect, 
like the prevailing sod orchards, but a regular designed 
method of producing results. Its application can hardly 
be as widespread as clean tillage, on level lands. 

It is a common opinion that hillsides and more or 
less inaccessible slopes should be planted to apples. This 



THE HEALTH AND ENERGY OF THE TREE 45 

may be true in the sense that apples will grow on such 
areas and that such plantations are better than fallow- 
land. In fact, many such lands are profitable in orchards. 
When they do not allow of tillage, easy spraying, and 
economy in harvesting, however, they cannot compete 
with level orchards. 

To maintain the health an1 energy of the apple-tree, 
the land should be enriched. This may be accomplished 
by the application of animal manures, chemical fertilizers, 
or cover-crops, or preferably by a combination of these 
means. Not many persons possess sufficient farm man- 
ures to supply the general crops and the apple-orchard; 
but every application the orchard receives is all to the 
good. Five to ten tons of good stable manure to the 
acre annually is a good addition for an orchard in bear- 
ing. This may be supplemented by cover-crops and bag 
fertilizers in years in which the manure is not available. 
Experiments are yet inconclusive on the fertilizing of 
apple-trees, but it is fair to assume that on most lands, 
particularly on old lands, the addition of chemical ferti- 
lizer is advantageous. A bearing apple-tree may receive 
two to eight pounds of nitrate of soda (depending on its 
size and on soil) applied to the full feeding area of the 
roots, five to nine pounds of acid phosphate, two or three 
pounds of muriate of potash ; always ask advice. 

The pasturing of orchards is often defensible and 
sometimes even desirable. If the trees are growing too 
rapidly, they may be "slowed down" by seeding to grass 
for a time ; and pasturing with hogs, and possibly with 
sheep, may afford a way of keeping the area in condition 
and of adding fertilizer. Sheep that do not have access 
to drinking-water and salt gnaw the trees. Hogs root up 



46 THE APPLE-TREE 

the ground and thereby provide a rude kind of tillage. If 
animals are fed other food in the orchard, the fertilizer 
increment will be considerable. 

In house-lot conditions, the apple-tree usually receives 
sufficient food if the land is well enriched for garden pur- 
poses ; but trees in sod should have liberal top-dressings 
of fertilizer every year and of stable manure every other 
year. 

The apple-tree should have a good supply of moisture. 
Planted on banks and in hard places about buildings, it 
may suffer in this respect. The land should be so graded 
that the rainfall will not run off. In orchard conditions, 
the moisture is conserved by the addition of humus to 
the land, and by thorough judicious tillage ; and in dry 
regions it is supplied by irrigation. 

The energy of the apple-tree, and its ability to pro- 
duce, is conserved by holding all diseases and noxious 
insects in check. The means at the command of the 
apple-grower are now many. No longer is the man help- 
less, nor does he need to appeal to the moon or to "at- 
mospheric influences" for reasons. The natural histories 
of fungi and insects, that do so much damage, are now 
a part of common understandable knowledge. To acquire 
at least a working understanding of the commonest of 
these subjects is in itself a great satisfaction and gives 
one a sense of dominion. The good books and bulletins 
are sufficient to keep one well informed. All these or- 
ganisms are tenants of the apple-tree, and from the 
naturist's point of view alone they are not to be over- 
looked. 

It is not to be inferred that all apple-trees will yield 
equally well with equally good treatment. There is 



THE HEALTH AND ENERGY OF THE TREE 47 

difference in trees as there is in cows. We may not know 
why. But even so, it is our part to do the best we can: 
this is our privilege. 

The tillage and care of plants lessen the struggle for 
existence. So is the apple-tree protected from the crowds, 
from contest for moisture and food, from insects, and 
from the competition within itself. Thereby is it able 
to express all its possibilities. Even the dormant poten- 
tialities may be wakened, and the plant makes a wide 
departure from its native state. This is not an original 
state of sin, but a state of repression in which it is held 
in a world that is full of so many things beside apple- 
trees. I may till my orchard ever so well, manipulate the 
trees ever so promptly, yet if the plantation then is al- 
lowed to run to neglect the processes of depreciation gain 
the mastery ; the struggle for existence is restored. 

To keep one's apple-tree in the pink of perfection is 
as joyful an enterprise as to do anything else well. It is 
only the well-conditioned tree that yields its glorious 
harvest year by year. 



VIII 

HOW AN APPLE-TREE IS MADE 

If the seeds of a Baldwin or Winesap apple are 
planted, we do not expect to get a Baldwin or Winesap ; 
we shall probably raise a very inferior fruit. The apple 
has not been bred "true to seed" as has the cabbage and 
sweet pea. To get the tree *'true to name," of the desired 
variety and with no chance of failure (barring accident), 
is one of the niceties of horticulture. This is accomplished 
with great precision and despatch. 

The apple-tree is started from the seed. It cannot be 
grown freely by means of cuttings, as can the grape and 
currant. In commercial practice the seeds are collected 
mostly from cider mills or from pomace. The seeds may 
be washed from the pomace, allowed to dry, and then 
mixed in sand, charcoal, sawdust or other material to 
prevent dessication and kept until spring, when they are 
sown. Or, if the' land is not so wet in winter that the 
seed will drown or be washed out, the seed in the pomace 
(not separated) may be sown in autumn. The seeds are 
sown in drills, after the manner of onions or turnips, one 
to two or even three inches deep. They germinate readily 
in the cool of spring, and the plants should reach a height 
of twelve inches and more the first year. 

If these plants were grown directly into bearing trees, 

48 



HOW AN APPLE-TREE IS MADE 49 

it is probable that no two trees would produce the same 
kind of fruit. Some of the fruit might be summer apples, 
some of it winter apples, some red, yellow or striped, 
some of it flat, oblong or spherical, most of it sour but 
perhaps some of it sweet. Probably every kind would 
be inferior to the parent stock or to standard varieties, 
although there is a fair chance that a superior kind might 
originate from a field of such plants. 

Therefore, it is not the variety (that is, the top) that 
is wanted in the raising of these numerous plants, but 
merely the roots, on which desired varieties may be grown 
by the clever art of graftage. Yet not even all the roots 
may be wanted, for the growing plants may differ or 
vary in their stature and vigor as well as in their fruit. 
The discriminating grower, therefore, discards the weak 
and puny treelings at the digging time; or if the weak 
plants seem still to have promise, they may be allowed 
to grow another year before they are dug for the grafting. 

This digging time is the autumn of the first year, when 
the plants have grown one season. They are then to be 
used as "stocks" on which to graft Baldwin, Winesap or 
other varieties. The growing of these apple stocks is a 
business by itself. Formerly, most of the stocks used in 
North America were imported from France, where special 
skill has been developed in the growing of them and 
where the requisite labor is available. But now the stocks 
are grown also in deep rich bottom lands of the Middle 
West, as in Kansas, where, in the long seasons, a large 
growth may be attained. 

The methods of graftage of the commercial apple-tree 
are two — by cion-grafting whereby a bit of wood with two 
or three buds is inserted on the stock, by bud-grafting 



so 



THE APPLE-TREE 



(budding) whereby a single bud with a bit of bark at- 
tached is inserted under the bark of the stock. 

Cion-grafting is practiced in winter under 
cover. The stock is cut off at the crown 
and the cion spHced on it, or the root may 
be cut in two or more pieces and each piece 
receive a cion. The union is made by the 
whip-graft method (Fig. 16). The cion is 
tied securely, to keep it in place. The piece- 
root method is allowable only when the root 
is long and strong, so that a well-rooted 
plant results the first year. The cion is a 
cutting of the last year's growth (as of No. 
1, in Fig. 14). However accomplished, the 
process is to supply the cion with roots ; it 
is planted in another plant instead of in the 
ground. 

The cion-grafts are now planted in the 
nursery row in spring. The cion starts 
growth rapidly, only one shoot being allowed 
to remain ; this shoot forms the trunk or 
bole of the future tree. At the end of the 
first season, the little tree is said to be one 
year old, although the root is at least two years old ; at 
the end of the second year it is two years old ; the tree 
is sometimes sold as a two-year old, but usually a year 
later as a three-year-old having a four-year-old root. In 
fact, however, the root and top may be considered, in a 
way, to be of the same age, particularly if only a piece of 
the root is employed, for the cion grew on its parent tree 
the same year the root was growing in the nursery. 
The tree grew from the seed but it is no longer a 



II 

1 6. The 
whip-graft be- 
fore tying. 



HOW AN APPLE-TREE IS MADE 



51 



"seedling" or a "natural ;" it is now a grafted tree, des- 
tined to produce a named recognized variety of apple, 
maybe York Imperial, maybe Jonathan. We find seed- 
ling trees in old fields, in fence-rows, and in woods. 
These have grown from scattered seeds and have come 
to fruit without the arts of the propagator. They bear 
their own tops or heads, rather than the heads that a 
thrifty horticulturist would have put on them. Now and 
then such a tree produces superior fruit ; then a discrim- 
mating pomologist discovers it, names it a new variety, 
and propagates it as other varieties are propagated. Thus 
have most of the prized varities originated, without 
knowledge on the part of man of the ultimate processes. 
But now with the accumulating knowledge of the plant- 
breeder we hope to be able to foresee and probably to 
produce varities of given qualities. 

Bud-grafting is practiced in summer. 
The young trees, obtained from the 
grower of apple stocks, are planted regu- 
larly in nursery rows in spring, the top 
having been cut back to the crown so that 
a strong vigorous shoot will arise. In 
July and August or September, when this 
shoot is the size of a lead pencil and 
larger and the bark will peel (or separate 
from the wood), a single bud is inserted 
near the ground (Fig. 17). This bud is 
deftly cut from the current year's growth 
of the desired variety; it grows in the axil 
of a leaf (Fig. 15). The leaf is removed 
but a small part of the stalk or petiole is 
retained with the bud to serve as a handle. 



17. A "bud" 
before tying. 



52 THE APPLE-TREE 

A boat-shaped or shield-shaped piece of bark is removed 
with the bud. This piece, known technically as a "bud," 
is inserted in an incision on the stock, so that it slips 
underneath the bark and next the wood, with only the 
bud itself showing in the slit; it is then tied in place. 

The stock on which the bud is inserted has a two- 
year root, and the root is entire. For this reason, budded 
trees are usually very large and strong for their age when 
compared with piece-root trees grown under similar con- 
ditions of climate, tillage and soil. 

The bud does not grow the year it is inserted in the 
stock; it is dormant until the following spring, as it 
would have been had it remained on its parent branch ; 
but soon after it is inserted it attaches itself fast to the 
stock : it is a bud implanted from one twig to another. 
The following spring, if the operation is successful, the 
bud "grows," sending up a strong shoot that makes the 
trunk of the future tree. The top of the stock is cut 
away ; in the merchantable tree, the bend or place may 
be seen where the stock and cion meet. 

As in the case of cion-grafting, we now have a top of a 
known variety growing on the root of an unknown kind. 
The tree is sold at two or three years, counting the age 
of the top ; and of course the tree is no longer called a 
seedling, and it produces its implanted variety as accu- 
rately as does the cion-grafted tree. Equally good trees 
are produced by both cion-grafting and bud-grafting. 

The apple-tree is now "propagated," and is ready for 
the planting. Great hopes will be built on it, and the 
tree will probably do its part to justify them. Nobody 
knows how a bud from a Baldwin tree holds the memory 
of a Baldwin or from a Winesap tree the memory of a 



HOW AN APPLE-TREE IS MADE 53 

Winesap. Neither does anyone know why of two seeds 
that look aUke one will unerringly produce a cabbage 
and the other a cauliflower. So accustomed are we to 
these results that we never challenge a twig of apple or 
a seed of cabbage : "we assume that the twig or the seed 
"knows." Nor have we yet approached this question in 
our elaborate studies of plant-breeding. Here is one of 
the mysteries that baffles the skill of the physiologist and 
chemist, yet it is a mystery so very common that we 
know it not, albeit the life on the planet would otherwise 
be utter confusion. 



IX 

THE DWARF APPLE-TREE 

We have learned that many kinds of apples and apple- 
trees may come from a batch of seeds. Differences are 
expressed in the tree as well as in the fruit. In fact, 
stature is usually one of the characteristics of the variety. 
Here I open Downing's great book, "The Fruits and 
Fruit-Trees of America," and find the description of a 
certain variety beginning : "Tree while young very slow 
in its growth, but makes a compact well-formed head in 
the orchard," and another: "Tree vigorous, upright 
spreading, and productive." We know the small stature 
and early bearing of the Wagener (wherefore it is often 
planted in the orchard as a filler), and the great wide- 
spreading head of the Tompkins King with the apples 
scattered through the tree. 

Now it so happens that in the course of time certain 
great races of the apple-tree have arisen, we do not know 
just why or how. There is the race or family of the 
russets and of the Fameuse. So are there several races 
very small in stature, remaining perhaps no larger than 
bushes. If we were to propagate any of the ordinary 
apples on such diminutive stocks, - we should have a 
"dwarf apple-tree." 

The dwarf apple, then, is not a question of variety 
54 



THE DWARF APPLE-TREE 55 

but of stock. Any variety may be grown as a dwarf by 
grafting it on a plant that naturally remains small, al- 
though some varieties are more adaptable than others to 
the purpose. 

If seeds of the natural diminutive apple-tree are sown, 
a variety of trees and apples may be expected. The fruits 
would probably be inferior. Probably the stature would 
vary between different seedlings. If we are to get the ef- 
fect of dwarfness, we must be sure that the stock is it- 
self really dwarf. Therefore, to eliminate variation and 
also because seeds of natural dwarf apples may not be 
had in sufficient quantity, the stocks are propagated by 
layers rather than by seeds. 

The diminutive tree, when well established, is cut 
of¥ near the ground. Sprouts arise. Some kinds sucker 
very freely. If earth is mounded up around the sprouts, 
roots form on them and the sprouts may be removed and 
treated as if they were seedling stocks. Usually the 
mounding is not performed until the shoots have made 
one season's growth. Gooseberries and some other plants 
are often propagated by mound-layers. In the case of the 
gooseberry, however, it is desired that the layer repro- 
duce the parent— it may be Downing or Whitesmith— 
and therefore it is planted without further manipulation. 
But in the case of the apple, we do not want the layer 
to reproduce the parent, for the parent would probably 
bear an inferior fruit since it does not represent an "im- 
proved" or recognized variety; therefore the layer is 
grafted or budded with the particular variety we desire 
to grow as a dwarf tree. 

Dwarf trees are grown in America, if at all, only in 
gardens, where extra attention may be given them. Only^ 



56 THE APPLE-TREE 

high-class kinds should be attempted on dwarfs, for the 
quantity-production of commercial apples must be ob- 
tained by less intensive methods on cheaper lands. 

Better fruits often are grown on dwarf than on stan- 
dards, for two reasons : It is usual to propagate only the 
best varieties on dwarf stock ; the little tree must receive 
extra care in pruning and in every other way. Its bushel 
of apples must be choice, every one, to make the effort 
of growing the tree worth the while. Under European 
conditions where land is high-priced and labor has been 
relatively cheap, it is possible (and common) to raise 
apples on dwarfs for market, as it is profitable to terrace 
the hillsides with human labor; but in North America 
the conditions are practically the reverse and the dwarf 
tree cannot compete with the standard orchard tree. 

The growing of a dwarf tree is essentially a garden- 
ing practice. It requires great skill. The spurs are pro- 
duced and protected to a nicety. Every fruit may be the 
separate product of handwork. The fertilizing, mulching, 
watering, are carefully regulated for every tree. Often 
the trees are trained on cordons, espaliers, trellises or 
walls. The individual fruits may be tied up or bagged. 
All this is very different from the raising of apples by 
means of tractors and other machinery, gangs of pruners 
and pickers, broadside extensive methods, with highly 
organized systems of handling and marketing, in all of 
which the money-measure is the chief consideration. It 
is for all these reasons that the growing of a few dwarf 
apple-trees may afford such intimate satisfaction to a 
careful man who prizes the result of his skill. 

The dwarfs are grown as little trees branching near 
the ground, headed in at top and side and kept within 




8. May 31— The success and failure 




9. June 14 — The one big apple 



THE DWARF APPLE-TREE 57; 

shape and bounds. If they are of the dwarfest dwarfs 
and not trained on trelHs or wall (as they usually are 
not in America), the fruit may be gathered by a man 
standing on the ground, even from old trees. The dwarfs 
are planted eight to ten feet apart when grown in regular 
plantation. 

Be it said that certain kinds of stocks produce trees 
only semi-dwarf; and in all cases if the tree is planted 
so deep that roots strike from the cion, the top will 
probably outgrow the stock, being supplied in part or 
even entirely by its own roots. 

This brings us to a consideration of some of the kinds 
of dwarf stocks, or dwarf races of the apple-tree. Be it 
said, in understanding of the subject, that there are nat- 
urally dwarf forms of many plants, and probably all 
ordinary plants are capable of producing them. Thus 
there are very compact condensed forms of arbor-vitae, 
Norway spruce, peach-tree. These have originated as 
seed sports and are multiplied by cuttings. So are there 
dwarf tomatoes, dwarf China asters, dwarf sweet peas, 
all coming more or less true from seeds, for these species 
(of short generations) have been bred to reproduce their 
variations. The inquirer must not suppose, therefore, 
that the races of dwarf apple-trees are an anomally in 
the vegetable kingdom. 

It is customary to speak of two classes or races of 
dwarf apple-trees, the Paradise and the Doucin. The 
former kinds are the smaller, the trees on their own 
roots sometimes reaching not more than four feet in 
height at full bearing maturity. On the Paradise stocks, 
the grafted apple-tree is very small ; it is a true dwarf. 
The Doucin trees are by nature larger, and apples 



58 THE APPLE-TREE 

grafted on them make semi-dwarf trees, midway in 
stature between the real dwarfs and the common stan- 
dard or "free" apple-trees. 

The case is not so simple, however, as this brief state- 
ment would make it appear. There are many kinds of 
Paradise stock, as also of Doucin. If one were to bring 
together living plants of all the kinds of natural dwarfs 
and semi-dwarfs that could be found in nurseries and 
growing collections, one would undoubtedly find a nearly 
complete series, so far as stature of tree is concerned, 
from the very dwarf to the full-sized standard tree. To 
say that a person is growing grafted dwarf apple-trees 
does not signify how large the trees may be expected to 
grow, for one may not know the particular kind of stocks 
on which the variety is grafted. In fact, it is considered 
even in Europe, where dwarf apples are chiefly grown, 
that the proper identification of dwarf stocks is still a 
subject for careful investigation. 

When the Paradise dwarfs first came into existence 
is undetermined. They appear to have been known in 
the Middle Ages. The many races, as the Dutch, French, 
Metz, Nonsuch, Broad-leaved, indicate an ancient origin. 
We cannot be too certain what apple-trees were meant 
in the early references to the Paradise apple. The fruits 
of the present natural Paradise apple-trees are not suffi- 
ciently attractive to justify us in considering them the 
"Tree of Paradise" or apple of the Garden of Eden, which 
circumstance is supposed by some to account for the 
name. "Paradise" was originally a park or pleasure 
ground, applied also to the Garden of Eden, and later to 
horticultural gardens. John Parkinson wrote his great 
treatise on horticulture, 1629, under the title, "Paradisi 



THE DWARF APPLE-TREE 59 

in Sole Paradisus terrestrls; or, a Choice Garden of all 
Sorts of Rarest Flowers, etc." Now we use the word for 
gardens of bliss. 

The word Doucin, from the Italian, is supposed origi- 
nally to have designated apples of sweet flavor, but it 
now applies technically to a class or race of semi-dwarf 
apple-trees. 

For the purpose of this little book, however, the in- 
terest in the dwarf apple centers not so much in the or- 
igin of the stock as in the natural-history of the tree itself 
and the good skill of hand and heart that one may ex- 
pend in the growing of it. If one would come close to a 
plant, knowing it intimately in every season, causing it 
to respond to sympathetic treatment through a series of 
years, then a garden collection of dwarf apples may 
satisfy the desire. It is too bad that we do not have 
time to cultivate the dwarfs often in the yards and gar- 
dens of North America. We are more familiar with the 
raising of dwarf pears (which are grafted on quince 
stocks since there is no similar race of natural dwarf pear- 
tree), but we do not give them the thumb-and-finger care 
that is demanded for the choicest results. The abundance 
of apples in the market should only stimulate the desire 
of the connoisseur to have trees and fruits that are wholly 
personal. The market produce can never gratify the af- 
fections. 



X 

WHENCE COMES THE APPLE-TREE? 

If the dwarf apple-tree goes back to the Middle Ages 
and perhaps farther, then whence comes the apple orig- 
inally? No one can surely answer. Carbonized apples 
are found in the remains of the prehistoric lake dwellings 
of Switzerland. When recorded history begins, apples 
were well known and widely distributed. The apple- 
tree is wild in many parts of Europe, but it is difficult 
to determine whether, in a given region, it is indigenous 
or has run wild from cultivation. Wild apple-trees are 
common in North America, but no one supposes that the 
orchard apple is native here. 

Expert opinion generally considers that the apple Is 
native in the region of the Caspian Sea and probably in 
southeastern Europe. Perhaps it had spread westward 
before the Aryan migrations. It had also probably spread 
eastward, but it is not a cultivated fruit in China and 
Japan except apparently as introduced in recent time. 
The apple is essentially a fruit of central and northern 
Europe, and of European migration and settlement. 

It is a fertile retrospect to conceive of the apple as an 
attendant of the course of Western civilization. With- 
out voice and leaving no record, it has nevertheless 
followed man in his wanderings, encouraged his attain- 

60 



WHENCE COMES THE APPLE-TREE? 61 

merit of permanent habitations, succored him in his emer- 
gencies. What the apple has contributed to sustenance 
can never be known, but we are aware that it yields its 
fruit abundantly, that it thrives in widely unlike regions 
and conditions, that the tree has the ruggedness to endure 
severe climates and to provide food that can be stored and 
transported. In the ages it must have stood guard at 
many a rude camp and fireside. It would be fascinating 
to know what the apple-tree has witnessed. 

These early apples must have been very crude fruits 
measured by the produce of the present day. But other 
food was crude and man was crude. The North Amer- 
ican Indians found the apple to be worth their effort; 
remains of some of the so-called Indian orchards of the 
Five Nations in New York persisted until the present 
generation. These were seedling apple-trees, grown from 
the stocks introduced by the white man. The French 
missionaries are said to have carried the apple far into 
the interior, and early settlers took seeds with them. The 
legends and records of Johnny Appleseed, sowing the 
seeds as he went, are still familiar. My father, like other 
pioneers, took seeds from the old New England trees into 
the wilderness of the West; the resulting trees w^ere top- 
grafted, some of them as late as my time ; I can remember 
the apples some of these seedling trees bore, the like of 
which I have never seen again, probably poor apples if 
we had them in this day but to a boy at the edge of the 
forest the very essence of goodness. As early as 1639, 
apples had been picked from trees planted on Governor's 
Island in Boston harbor. Governor John Endicott of 
Massachusetts Colony had an apple-tree nursery in the 
early day ; in 1644 he says that five hundred of his trees 



62 THE APPLE-TREE 

were destroyed by fire. So the apple came early to be a 
standby on the new continent. 

The apples of the colonists were not all for eating, 
but for drinking. The butts and barrels of cider put in 
cellars in the early times seem to us most surprising. 
Herein are suggestions of old social customs that might 
lead us into interesting historical excursions. The oldest 
book I possess on the apple is ''Vinetum Britannicum : or, 
a Treatise of Cider," published in London in 1676; it 
treats also of other beverages made from fruits and of 
"the newly-invented ingenio or mill, for the more expedi- 
tious and better making of cider." The gradual change 
in customs, whereby the eating of the apple (rather than 
the drinking of it) has come to be paramount, is a signi- 
ficant development; the use of apple-juice may now pro- 
ceed on another basis, on the principle of preservation 
and pasteurization rather than of fermentation. 

It is the custom to call the apple Pyrus Mains. This is 
the name given by the great Linnaeus, with whom the 
modern accurate naming of plants and animals begins. The 
nomenclature of plants starts with his "Species Plantarum," 
1753. Pyrus is the genus or group comprising the pears 
and apples, and Linnaeus included the quince ; Malus 
is Latin for the apple-tree. Together the names represent 
genus and species, — the malus Pyrus. 

These statements are easy enough to make, but it is 
impossible to demonstrate whether the common pomologi- 
cal apples are derived from one original species or from 
two or more. Many technical botanical names have been 
given in the group, but we need not pause with them here. 
It is enough for our purpose to know that the natural-his- 
tory of the apple, as of anything else that runs to time 



WHENCE COMES THE APPLE-TREE? 63 

immemorial, passes at the end into obscurity. We seem 
never to reach the ultimate origins or to find an end to our 
quests. 

There are other apples than the common pomological 
orchard types. There are the crabs. In general usage, the 
word '*crab" designates an apple that is small, sour and 
crabbed. Such apples are wildings or seedlings. They are 
merely depreciated forms of Pyrus Mains, and probably 
much like the first apples known to man. What are known 
to horticulturists as crab-apples, however, are other species 
of Pyrus, of different character and origin. We need not 
pause with the discussion of them, except to say that the 
commonest kinds are the little long-stemmed fruits of 
Pyrus baccata (berry Pyrus), native in eastern Europe and 
Siberia. These are the "Siberian crabs." The leaves and 
twigs are smooth, and the calyx falls away from the fruit, 
leaving a bare blossom end. These little hard handsome 
fruits are used in the making of conserves. Certain larger 
crab-apples, in which the blossom end is not clean or bare, 
as the .Transcendent and Hyslop, are probably hybrids be- 
tween the true crabs and the common apple ; this class pro- 
vides the main crab-apples of the markets. 

When the settlers came to the country west and south 
of New England, they found another kind of crab-apples 
in the woods, truly native. The fruits were hard and sour, 
but they could be buried to ripen. The trees are much like 
a thorn-apple, — low, spreading, twiggy, thorny; but the 
pink-white large fragrant flowers are very different. The 
wild crab-apple was called Pyrus coronaria by Linnaeus, 
the "garland Pyrus." On the prairies is another species, 
Pyrus ioensis; it yields a charming double-flowered form, 
"Bechtel's crab." In the South are other species. In fact, 



64 THE APPLE-TREE 

P. coronaria itself may not be a single species. These wild 
crabs run into many forms. In the northern Mississippi and 
prairie country are native apples good enough to be intro- 
duced into cultivation under varietal names. These are 
Pyrus Soulardii, a species bearing the name of J. G. Soulard, 
Illinois horticulturist. These crab-apples are probably nat- 
ural hybrids between Pyrus Mains and the prairie crab, P. 
ioensis. Had there been no European apple to be intro- 
duced by colonists, it is probable that improved forms would 
have been evolved from the native species. In that event, 
North American pomology would have had a very different 
character. 

There remains a very different class of apple-trees, 
grown only for ornament and usually known as "flowering 
apples." They are mostly native in China and Japan. They 
are small trees, or even almost bushes, with profuse hand- 
some flowers and some of them with very ornamental little 
fruits. They have come to this country largely from Japan 
where they are grown for decoration, as the cherries of 
Japan are grown not for fruit but for their flowers, being 
of very different species from the cherries of Europe and 
America. The common apple itself yields varieties grown 
only for ornament, as one with variegated leaves, one with 
double flowers, and one with drooping branches. These are 
known mostly in Europe ; but these forms do not compare 
in interest with the handsome species of the Far East. 

All these differing species of the apple-tree multiply 
the interest and hold the attention in many countries. They 
make the apple-tree group one of the most widespread and 
adaptable of temperate-region trees. It will be seen that 
there are three families of them, — the Eurasian family, 
from which come the pomological apples ; the North Amer- 



WHENCE COMES THE APPLE-TREE? 65 

ican family, which has yielded little cultivated material ; the 
East-Asian family, abundant in highly ornamental kinds. 
There are no apple-trees native in the southern hemisphere. 
The apple-tree, taken in its general sense, has a broad 
meaning. What may be accomplished by breeding and 
hybridizing is beyond imagination, 



XI 

THE VARIETIES OF APPLE 

Every seedling of the pomological apples is a new 
variety. Some of these seedlings are so good that they 
are named and introduced into cultivation. They are 
grafted on other stocks, and become part of the great 
inheritance of desirable apples. 

It is to be expected that in the long processes of time 
in many countries the number of varieties will accumu- 
late to high numbers. No one knows all the kinds that 
have been named and propagated, but they run into many 
thousands. No one book contains them all, although 
some of the manuals are voluminous. Varieties drop out 
of existence, being no longer propagated ; new varieties 
come in. 

So the lists of varieties gradually change. A list of 
one hundred years ago would contain many names 
strange to us. Thus, of the sixty apples in "A Select List 
of Fruit-Trees" by Bernard M'Mahon, published in "The 
American Gardener's Calendar," in 1806, not more than 
six or eight would be understandable to a planter of the 
present day. 

With the standardizing of practices in the commercial 
growing of fruits, the tendency is to reduce the number 
of varieties to small proportions ; it is these varieties that 

66 



THE VARIETIES OF APPLE 67 

the nurserymen propagate. Here and there over the 
country are still trees of the extra-quality but uncommer- 
cial varieties known to a former generation. If the 
amateur now wants to grow these varieties, he must find 
cions as best he can by patient correspondence, and graft 
them on his own trees. When I planted an orchard 
twenty-five years ago, I found cions of JefTeris here, of 
Dyer there, of Mother, Swaar and Chenango in other 
places. 

In the enlarged edition of Downing's "Fruits and 
Fruit-Trees of America," 1872, are descriptions of 1856 
varieties, of which 1099 are American in origin, 585 for- 
eign, 172 of origin unknown. The lists are not only 
much smaller in these days, but the foreign element tends 
to pass out. With the introduction of the Russian apples 
for the cold North in the latter part of the past century, 
the importation of foreign varieties practically ceased, 
as it ceased also for the pears at an earlier date with the 
introductions of Manning, Wilder and others. The epoch 
of the "testing" of varieties passed away, and with it 
has gone an appreciative attitude toward fruits and even 
toward life that constitutes a sad lack in our day. 

About thirty years ago (1892) I compiled an inven- 
tory of all the varieties of apple-trees sold in North 
America, as listed in the ninety-five nurserymen's 
catalogues that came to my hand. The inventory con- 
tains 878 varieties. In the present year, however, per- 
haps not more than. 100 varieties are handled by nursery- 
men in Eastern United States. Probably the dealer and 
grower would consider even this small number much too 
great. The highly developed standardized business of the 
present day, aiming at quantity-production, naturally re- 



68 THE APPLE-TREE 

duces the variety of products, whether in manufacturing 
or horticulture, and aims at uniformity. Under the in- 
fluence of this leadership, we are losing many of the old 
products, varieties of apples among the rest. 

Why do we need so many kinds of apples? Because 
there are so many folks. A person has a right to gratify 
his legitimate tastes. If he wants twenty or forty kinds 
of apples for his personal use, running from Early Har- 
vest to Roxbury Russet, he should be accorded the priv- 
ilege. Some place should be provided where he may 
obtain trees or cions. There is merit in variety itself. 
It provides more points of contact with life, and leads 
away from uniformity and monotony. 

The leading varieties of apples, that have become 
dominant over wide regions, have been great benefactors 
to man. The original tree should be carefully preserved 
till the last, by historical or other societies ; and then a 
monument should be placed at the spot. Monuments 
have been erected to the Baldwin, Northern Spy, Mc- 
intosh and other apples. We should never lose our 
touch with the origins of men, events, notable achieve- 
ments, outstanding products of nature. 

I fear it is now a habit with many fruit-growers to 
minimize the interest in varieties, placing the emphasis 
on tillage, spraying and management of plantations. Yet, 
the only reason why we expend all the labor is that 
we may grow a given kind of apple ; the variety is thei 
final purpose. 

In this little book we cannot discuss varieties at 
length. There are special books on this fascinating sub- 
ject. But we may have before us a compiled list by way 
of interesting suggestion. The list is sorted from the 



"Hm^ 







t 



w 



THE VARIETIES OF APPLE 69 

Catalogue of Fruits of the American Pomological Society, 
1901, the last year in which the catalogue was published 
with quality rated on a scale of 10. On such a scale, 
Ben Davis ranks 4-5; Baldwin, 5-6; Wealthy and York 
Imperial, 6-7; Rhode Island Greening, 7-8; Northern 
Spy, 8-9; Yellow Newtown (Albermarle Pippin) 9-10. 
There is no apple in the entire catalogue of 324 kinds 
(not including crab-apples) rated wholly lower than 4 
in quality except one alone and this is grown for cider 
only, although several varieties of minor importance bear 
the marks 3-4. Only two varieties are rated exclusively 
10, the Garden Royal, a Massachusetts summer-fall apple, 
little known to planters, and the familiar Esopus Spitzen- 
berg. Of course judgments differ widely in these mat- 
ters, as there are no inflexible criteria for the scoring of 
quality ; yet this extensive list is probably our soundest 
approach to the subject. 

The varieties in the catalogue of the American Po- 
mological Society are starred if "known to succeed in 
a given district" and double-starred "if highly success- 
ful." North America is thrown into nineteen districts 
for the purposes of this catalogue (which comprises 
other fruits besides apples). For our purposes we may 
combine them into six more or less indefinite great re- 
gions: n. e., the northeastern part of the country, Dela- 
ware and Pennsylvania to eastern Canada ; s. e., the parts 
south of this area and mostly east of the Mississippi ; 
n. c, north central, from Kansas and Missouri north; 
s. w., Texas to Arizona; mt., the mountain states of the 
Rockies west to the Sierras, including of course much 
high plains country; pac, the Pacific slope, Washington 
to southern California. 



70 THE APPLE-TREE 

Of the varieties starred and double-starred in these 
various geographical regions there are 107; these are 
listed herev^ith. Of course the intervening tw^enty years 
might change the rating of some of these apples, other 
varieties have come to the front, and certain ones of 
these older worthies are receding still further into the 
background ; but the exhibit is suggestive none the less. 

Arkansas — n.e., s.e., n.c, s.w., mt. 

Bailey (Sweet) — n.e., s.e., n.c., mt. 

Baker — n.e. 

Baldwin — n.e., s.e., n.c., mt., s.w., pac. 

Beach — s.e. 

Belle Bonne — n.e. 

Ben Davis — n.e., s.e., n.c, s.w., mt., pac. 

Bietigheimer — n.e., s.e., n.c, mt. 

Bledsoe — s.e. 

Blenheim — n.e., n.c 

Blue Pearmain — n.e., s.e., n.c, mt. 

Bough, Sweet — n.c, s.e., n.c, mt. 

Bryan — s.e., mt, 

Buckingham — n.c, s.e., n.c 

Canada Reinette — n.e., n.c, mt. 

Clayton — n.e., s.e. n.c, mt. 

Clyde — n.e., n.c. 

Cogswell — n.e. 

Cooper — n.e., s.e., n.c, mt. 

Cracking — s.e, n.c. 

Doyle — s.e. 

Early Pennock — n.c, s.e, n.c, mt. 

Esopus (Spitzenburg) — n.e., s.e., n.c, mt., pac 

Ewalt — n.c, s.e,, mt. 

Fallawater — n.c, s.e., n.c, mt. 

Fall Harvey — n.c, mt. 

Fall Jenneting — n.c, s.e., n.c, mt. 

Fall Orange — n.c, s.e, n.c. 

Fall Pippin — n.c, s.e, n.c, s.w., mt. 



THE VARIETIES OF APPLE 71 

Fanny— n.e., s.e., n.c, s.w. 

Farrar — s.e. 

Foundling — n.e. 

Gano— n.e., s.e., n.c, s.w., mt. 

Gilbert — s.e. 

Golding~n.e., s.e., n.c, mt. 

Gravenstein — n.e., s.e., n.c, mt., s.w., pac. 

Hagloe — n.e., s.e. 

Hoover — s.e., n.c, mt., pac 

Hopewell — n.c. 

Horse — n.e., s.e., n.c 

Hubbardston— n.e., s.e., n.c, s.w. 

Hunge — s.e. 

Huntsman — s.e., n.c, s.w., mt. 

Isham (Sweet) — n.c 

Jacobs Sweet — n.e. 

Kent — n.e., s.e., n.c. 

Kernodle — s.e. 

Lady Sweet— n.e., mt. 

Lankford — n.e., s.e. 

Lawyer — n.e., s.e., n.c, mt. 

Lilly (of Kent)— n.c 

Lowe — s.e. 

Lowell — n.c, s.e, n.c, mt. 

McAfee — n.e., s.e., mt. 

McCuller— s.e. 

McMahon — n.c, n.c, mt. 

Magog — n.e. 

Maverack — s.e. 

Milwaukee — n.c. 

Minister — n.e., s.e., n.c. 

Monmouth — s.e., n.c, mt. 

Newell — n.c 

Nickajack — n.c, s.e., n.c, mt. 

Northern Spy — n.e., s.e., n.c, mt., pac. 

Northwestern (Greening) — n.c, n.c, mt. 

Oconee — n.c, s.e. 

Ohio Nonpareil — n.c, s.e. 

Ohio Pippin— n.e., s.e., n.c. 



72 THE APPLE-TREE 

Ortley — n.e., s.e., n.c, mt. 

Paragon — n.e., s.e., n.c, mt. 

Patten (Greening) — n.c. 

Pease — n.e. 

Peck (Pleasant) — n.e., s.e., n.c, mt. 

Peter — n.c. 

Pewaukee — n.e., s.e., n.c, mt. 

Porter — n.e., s.e., n.c, mt. 

Pumpkin Sweet — n.e., s.e., n.c. 

Quince — n.e., n.c. 

Ramsdell (Sweet) — n.e., s.e. n.c, mt. 

Red Astrachan — n.e., s.e., n.c, s.w., mt, pac. 

Rhode Island (Greening) — n.e., s.e., n.c, s.w., mt, pac 

Ridge (Pippin) — n.e. 

Rolfe — n.e. 

Rome — n.e., s.e., n.c, s.w., mt. 

Stark — n.e., s.e., n.c, s.w., mt 

Starkey — n.e., s.e. 

StaymanWinesap — n.e., s.e., n.c 

Sterling — n.e., n.c. 

Summer King — n.e., s.e. 

Swaar — n.e., n.c, mt., pac. 

Taunton — s.e. 

Titovka — n.e., mt. 

Tompkins King— n.e., s.e., mt., pac. 

Twenty Ounce — n.e., s.e., s.w., mt. 

Utter — n.c. 

Vanhoy — n.e., s.e. 

Virginia Greening — s.e., mt. 

Washington (Strawberry) — n.e., s.e., mt. 

Watson — s.e. 

White Pippin — n.e., s.e., n.c, mt., pac. 

Wine — n.e., s.e., n.c, mt. 

Wistal — s.e., s.w. 

Wolf River — n.e., s.e., n.c, mt 

Yellow Bellflower — n.e., s.e., s.w., mt., pac. 

Yellow Newtown — n.e., s.e., n.c, s.w., mt., pac. 

Yopp — s.e. 

York Imperial— n.e., s.e., n.c, s.w., mt 



THE VARIETIES OF APPLE 73 

There are many odd varieties of apple not found in 
any list but about which questions are likely to arise. 
One of these is the Sweet-and-Sour. There is an old 
ribbed variety of this name, the ribs having an acid flesh 
and the furrows sweetish ; it is little known and of no 
special value. Apples are sometimes found that are 
sweetish on one side and sourish on the other. The 
reasons for this kind of variation are no more understood 
than are those responsible for variance in color or shape 
or durability. One yet sometimes hears the pleasant 
fable that sweet-and-sour apples are produced by split- 
ting the bud when the tree was propagated. 

The Surprise is a small whitish apple with light 
red flesh. It is indeed a surprise to bite into such 
an apple, but it has little merit. It is an early winter 
variety. 

One is frequently asked about the Sheepnose apple, 
particularly by older people who remember it from early 
days and who deplore its infrequency in these latter 
times. The sheepnose shape — long-conical — is an in- 
frequent variation, as apples go, and apparently none of 
these forms chances to have sufficient merit to keep it in 
the lists. The name is often applied to the Black Gilli- 
flower, an old apple more than three inches long, dark 
red, of light weight perhaps because of the large core, 
ripening late in autumn to midwinter. It seems to be 
specially prized by children, perhaps in part because of 
its unusual shape and in part by its aromatic fragrance; 
but it is not a high-class apple, and is now little seen. 
With the Rambo, Vandevere, some of the russets. Early 
Harvest, Jersey Sweet and other old worthies, it probably 
will pass away unless rescued here and there by the amateur. 
To the lover of choice fruit nothing is old ; every succeed- 



74 THE APPLE-TREE 

ing crop is as choice and new as is the new year itself, 
and one waits for it again and again. 

One hears of seedless and no-core apples, as also of 
pears. The core is present but greatly reduced in size, 
and the seeds may be few and small. I have also raised 
practically seedless tomatoes. All these are infrequent 
variations that may be propagated by asexual parts (cut- 
tings, cions), but as yet none of them has any outstand- 
ing value. 

The reader will now ask me about the water-core 
apples, so much sought and prized by youngsters. The 
water-core is not characteristic of a variety, although 
occuring in some varieties more frequently than in others. 
It is a physiological condition, supposed to be associated 
with a relatively low transpiration (evaporation) so that 
excess water is held in the fruit. In certain seasons this 
condition is marked, and also in cloudy regions and often 
on young trees that have an over-supply of moisture. Yet 
such cores occur in old trees and sometimes with more 
or less regularity. What the physiological inability may 
be in such cases to dispose of excess moisture appears to 
be undetermined. 

Now and then one finds a double apple, with two fruits 
grown solidly together, two blossom ends and a single 
stem. A seedling tree I knew as a boy bore such apples 
frequently, sometimes a score of them among the crop of 
the year. This, of course, is a malformation or terato- 
logical state. Apparently two flowers coalesce to form 
these fruits. On the tree of which I speak, the two fruits 
were about equal in size, making a large, widened, edible 
apple, but I have known of other cases in which a dim- 
inutive undeveloped fruit is attached to the side of a 
normal one. 



THE VARIETIES OF APPLE 75 

Perhaps the oddest of them all is the "Bloomless 
apple." It is said to have no flowers. In fact, however, 
the flowers are present but they lack showy petals and 
are therefore not conspicuous. The bloomless apple is 
a monstrous state, the cause of which is unknown. Now 
and then a tree is reported. It was described at least as 
long ago as 1768, and in 1770 Muenchhausen called it 
Pyriis apetala (the petalless pyrus). The flowers have no 
stamens, and apparently they are pollinated from any other 
apples in the vicinity. In 1785, Moench described it as 
Pyrus dioica (the dioecious pyrus, sexes separated on 
different plants). The ovary is also malformed, having six 
or seven and sometimes probably more cells, and bearing 
ten to fifteen styles. The resulting fruit has a core char- 
acter unknown in other apples but approached in certain 
apple-like fruits, as the medlar. The fruit has a hole or 
opening from the calyx (which is open) into the core; and 
the core is roughly double, one series above the other. The 
fruit, in such specimens as I have seen or read about, has 
no horticultural merit ; but it is a curiosity of great botanical 
interest. It appears now and then in widely separated places, 
the trees probably having originated as chance seedlings. 
The fruits from the different originations are not always 
the same in size and form, but the flowers apparently all 
have the same malformed character. 

The apple is preeminently the home fruit. It is not 
transitory. It spans every season. In an indifferent cellar 
I keep apples till apples come again. The apple stands up, 
keeps well on the table. Children may handle it. In color 
and form it satisfies any taste. Its rondure is perfect. The 
cavity is deep, graceful and well moulded, holding the good 
stem securely. The basin is a natural summit and termin- 
ation of the curvatures, bringing all the lines together, 



Id THE APPLE-TREE 

finishing them in the ornaments of the remaining calyx. The 
fruit adapts itself to the hand. The fingers close pleasantly- 
over it, fitting its figure. It has a solid feel. The flesh of a 
good apple is crisp, breaking, melting, coolly acid or mildly 
sweet. It has a fracture, as one bites it, possessed by no 
other fruit. One likes to feel the snap and break of it. 
There is a stability about it that satisfies ; it holds its shape 
till the last bite. One likes to linger on an apple, to sit 
by a fireside to eat it, to munch it waiting on a log when 
there is no hurry, to have another apple with which to invite 
a friend. 

Now I am not thinking of the Ben Davis apple or any of 
its kind. I do not want to be doomed to one variety of 
apple, or even to half a dozen kinds, and particularly I do 
not want a poor one. There are enough good apples, if 
we can get them. The days of the amateur fruit-growers 
seem to be passing. At least we do not hear much of them 
in society or in many of the meetings of horticulturists. 
There may be many reasons, but two are evident: we give 
the public indifferent fruits, and thereby neither educate the 
taste or stimulate the desire for more ; we do not provide 
them places from which they can get plants of many of the 
choicest things. Yet on a good amateur interest in fruits 
depends, in the end, the real success of commercial fruit- 
growing. Just now we are trying to increase the consump- 
tion of apples, to lead the people to eat an apple a day: it 
cannot be accomplished by customary commercial methods. 
To eat an apple a day is a question of affections and 
emotions. 

We have had great riches in our varieties of apples. It 
has been a vast resource to have a small home plantation 
of many good varieties, each perfect in its season. The great 



THE VARIETIES OF APPLE 11 

commercial apple-growing has been carried to high per- 
fection of organization and care. More perfect apples are 
put on the market, in proportion to numbers, than ever be- 
fore, — carefully grown and graded and handled. I have 
watched this American development with growing pride. 
The quantity-production makes for greater perfection of 
product, but it does not make for variety and human in- 
terest nor for high-quality varieties. We shall still improve 
it. Masterful men will perfect organizations. The high char- 
acter and attainment of the commanding fruit-growers, 
nurserymen and dealers are good augury for the future. 
But all this is not sufficient. Quantity-production will be 
an increasing source of wealth, but it cannot satisfy the 
soul. 

The objects and productions of high intrinsic merit are 
preserved by the amateur. It is so in art and letters. It 
is necessarily so. A body of amateurs is an essential back- 
ground to the development of science. The late Professor 
Pickering, renowned astronomer, encouraged the amateur 
societies of star-observers, and others. The amateurs in 
the background, disinterested and unselfish, support ap- 
propriations by legislatures for even abstruse public work. 
The amateur is the embodiment of the best in the common 
life, the conservator of aspirations, the fulfillment of dem- 
ocratic freedom. I hope pomology will not lag in this 
respect. In all lines I hope that professionalism will not 
subjugate the man who follows a subject for the love of it 
rather than for the gain of it or for the pride of it. In 
horticulture, when we lose the amateur, who, as the word 
means, is the lover, w^e lose the ideals. 

Naturally, the nurseryman cannot grow trees of all the 
good apples that may be wanted. The experiment stations 



78 THE APPLE-TREE 

cannot maintain living museums of them, for their func- 
tion is to investigate rather than to preserve. Arboretums 
are concerned with other activities. Is there not some per- 
son of means, desiring to do good to his successors, ready 
now to establish a fructicetum in perpetuum for the pur- 
pose of preserving a single tree of at least one hundred of 
the choicest apples, to the end that a record may be kept 
and that amateurs may be supplied with cions thereof ? 



XII 
THE PLEASANT ART OF GRAFTING 

If I procure cuttings of a good apple, what shall I 
do with them that they may give me of their fruitage? 

The cuttings will probably be dormant twigs of the 
last season's growth. They may not be expected to grow 
when placed in the ground. They are therefore planted 
in another tree, becoming cions. The case is in no way 
different in principle from the propagating of the young 
tree in the nursery, of which we already have learned. 
The nurseryman works with a small stock, a mere slip of 
a seedling one or two years old. The grower would 
better not attempt the making of nursery trees. It is 
better for him to purchase regular nursery trees and to 
graft the cions on them ; or he may put the cions in any 
older tree that is available. 

I have spoken of my own collecting of certain dessert 
apples. I "worked" them on young Northern Spy trees, 
purchased when two or three years old ; they were grafted 
after they had stood a year in the orchard. These 
Northern Spy trees, used in this case as stocks, were 
regularly grown by nurserymen. The Northern Spy was 
chosen because of its hardiness and straight, clean, erect 
growth, making it a vigorous and comely stock. Weak- 
growing varieties are usually rejected for this purpose. 

79 



80 THE APPLE-TREE 

Some growers use Oldenburg as stock, and there are 
other good kinds. 

From the young stock, the old head is to be removed 
and a new head (the new variety) grown in its stead. 
The tree, therefore, will be combined of three kinds of 
apple, — the root of unknown quality; the trunk or body 
under a varietal name; the top, of the variety desired. 
Any number of different kinds of apple wood may be 
worked into the tree if the tree is large enough. If the 
operations are well performed so that there are no im- 
perfect unions, and if the pruning is judicious, the tree 
may be grafted many times, in whole or in part. 

I have said that my father brought apple seeds from 
New England and that the resulting seedlings were top- 
grafted. One of these trees was early top-worked to 
"Holland Pippin," which seldom bore. It stood in the 
yard near the smoke-house, where it found abundant 
nourishment. It grew to great size. In time I became 
a grafter of trees for the neighborhood, and often as I 
returned at night would have cions of different kinds in 
my pockets. It became a pastime to graft these cions in 
the old tree. More than thirty varieties were placed 
there. It was with keen anticipation, as the years came, 
that I looked for the annual crop, to see what strange 
inhabitants would appear in the great tree-top. I do not 
remember how many of these varieties came into bear- 
ing before the tree was finally gathered to the wood-box, 
but they were a goodly number, probably more than a 
score. I used often to wonder how it was that the nutri- 
ents taken in by the roots of the Vermont seedling and 
transported in the tissues of the Holland Pippin, com- 
bined with the same air, could produce so many diverse 



THE PLEASANT ART OF GRAFTING 81 

apples and even pears (for I had pears in that tree) each 
with the marks and flavor proper to its kind. The little 
cions I grafted into the tree were soon lost in the over- 
growths, and yet all the branches that came from them 
carried the genius of one single variety and of none 
other. And I often speculated whether there were any 
reflex action of these many varieties on the root, de- 
manding a certain kind of service from it. 

The cions (sometimes still called ''grafts") are cut 
in winter or early spring, when well matured and per- 
fectly dormant. Placed in sand in a cool cellar so they 
will not shrivel, they are kept until grafting time, which 
is early spring, usually before the leaves start on the 
stock. The cions may be placed on the tree by several 
methods, but only two are commonly employed, — the 
whip-graft and the cleft-graft. The former is adapted 
to small stocks, the size of one's finger or smaller; it is 
the method employed in root-grafting in the nursery, 
and Fig. 16 explains it. 

The requirement is to cause the cion and stock to 
grow together solidly, making one piece of wood. The 
growing plastic region is associated with the cambium 
tissues underneath the bark. It is necessary, therefore, 
to bring the ''line betwixt the wood and the bark" to- 
gether in the two parts, and to hold the junction firm 
and also well protected from evaporation until union 
takes place. The method of putting the parts together, 
the form of whittling, is a matter of convenience and 
practice. 

The case was put in this way by old Robert Shar- 
rock, "Fellow of New-College," in his "History of the 
Propagation and Improvement of Vegetables by the con- 



82 THE APPLE-TREE 

currence of Art and Nature" (I quote from the second 
edition, Oxford, 1672) : ''Grafting is an Art of so placing 
the Cyon upon a stock, that the Sap may pass from the 
stock to the Cyon without Impediment." Batty Langley, 
in 1729, gave this direction in the "Pomona" : ''The 
Stocks being cleft, you must therefore cut the Cion in 
the Form of a Wedge, which must always be cut from a 
Bud, for the Reasons aforesaid ; and then with a Graft- 
ing-Chizel open the Slit, and place the Cion therein, so 
that their Barks may be exactly even and smooth." 

Still earlier (1626) did William Lawson, in "A New 
Orchard and Garden," set forth the rationale of the prac- 
tice in his Chapter X, "On Grafting," in this wise: 
"Now are we come to the most curious point of our 
faculty : curious in conceit, but indeed as plaine and 
easie as the rest, when it is plainly shewne, which we 
commonly call Graffing, or (after some) Grafting. I can- 
not Etymoligize, nor shew the original of the word, 
except it come of graving and carving. But the thing or 
matter is : The reforming of the Fruit of one Tree with 
the fruit of another, by an artificial transplacing or trans- 
posing of a twig, bud or leafe, (commonly called a Graft) 
taken from one tree of the same, or some other kind, and 
placed or put to, or into another tree in due time and 
manner." 

If the whip-graft is to be below the ground, it is suf- 
ficient to tie the parts tightly with string and cover with 
earth ; if above ground, wax is applied over the string to 
prevent drying out. On the small shoots of young trees, 
the whip-graft is often employed, but it is not used in 
large trees. 

The cleft-graft is shown in Fig. 18. The trunk or 



THE PLEASANT ART OF GRAFTING 



83 



branch is cut off; two cions are inserted in a cleft made 
with a knife. The "stub" is covered with grafting-wax 
(Fig. 19). Cleft-grafting is the usual method for the 
orchardist. 



The cleft-graft. 



19. 
The cleft-graft 
after waxing. 




In either kind of grafting, the cion carries about three 
leaf-buds. If "wood" (cion-shoots) is scarce, only one 
bud may be taken, but this reduces the chances of suc- 
cess. One bud may not grow, or the young shoot may 
be injured. The lowest bud is usually most likely to 
grow; it pushes through the wax. 

In young trees set for the purpose of top-working, 
the trunk may be cut off at the desired height and two 
cions inserted. The entire top is then removed at once; 



84 THE APPLE-TREE 

this is allowable only on young trees. Probably the bet- 
ter practice is to graft the main small side hmbs and the 
main trunk or leader higher up. Usually it is better to 
leave some of the branches on the tree, not removing 
them all till the second or third year. 

In old apple-trees, the main branches are grafted, 
where they are an inch or two in diameter. Care is taken 
so to choose the branches that a well-shaped free-headed 
tree will result. Only a small part of the top is removed 
the first year, and three or four years may be required to 
change the top all over, the old branches being removed 
as the new ones grow. In about three years, or four, the 
grafts should begin to bear, — about as soon as strong 
three-year-old trees planted in the orchard. 

Any variety of the pomological apples will grow on 
any other variety, but apples do not take well on other 
species, as does the pear. The pear may be made to grow 
on the apple, but the graft is short-lived and the practice 
is not recommended. Boys may graft indiscriminately 
for practice, but grown-ups, having arrived at the un- 
fortunate age of discretion, must operate only on those 
kinds known to succeed when joined. I have never 
known a boy who did not want to graft anything, as soon 
as his attention was called to the operation. The boy 
does not take it for granted : he wants to try. 



XIII 
THE MENDING OF THE APPLE-TREE 

Many accidents overtake the apple-tree. The hired 
man skins the tree with the harrow; fire runs through 
the dry grass ; hard winters shatter the vitahty, and parts 
of the tree die ; borers enter ; rabbits and mice gnaw the 
bark in winter; loads of fruit and burdens of ice crush 
the tree; wind storms play mischief; bad pruning leaves 
long stubs, and rot develops ; cankers produce dead 
ragged wounds; fire-blight destroys the tissue; a poorly 
formed tree with bad crotches splits easily; grafts fail 
to take, and long dead ends are left; the tree is injured 
by pickers ; vandals wreak their havoc. All these acci- 
dents must be met and the damages repaired. The sur- 
geon must be summoned. 

We must first understand how a wound heals on a 
tree. Note any wound, — knot-hole on the trunk, place 
where wood has been removed. The exposed wound it- 
self does not heal ; it is covered and inclosed by tissue 
built out from the edges or periphery of the wound. This 
tissue is like a roll. It is the callus. Eventually the tis- 
sue meets in the center, and the lid is thereby put on the 
place, and it is sealed. The exposed wood has died, if 
it is the cross-section of a branch or a deep wound, and it 
remains under the callus a dead body. If the wood has 

85 



86 THE APPLE-TREE 

not started to decay in the meantime, the place is safe, 
but too often invasion has begun before the process is 
complete, the rot disease finally extends to the heart of 
the tree, causing it to become hollow. If the center of 
the wound falls in, the callus cannot cover it, and an open 
sore remains. In these cavities birds may sometimes 
build. 

Therefore there are two points for the surgeon to 
consider in respect to the wound itself — whether it is 
so placed on the tree that the callus forms readily; 
whether the wound is kept healthy during exposure. 

All ragged tissue being removed, deep-wound sur- 
faces should be kept aseptic. For ordinary cases, 
w^hite-lead paint with plenty of linseed oil is a good pro- 
tective from the germs of decay. On old wood, no longer 
active, creosote is good, perhaps followed by coal-tar. 
Usually, however, paint is quite sufficient. Small ex- 
posures usually receive no dressing. When the fresh 
surface wood is exposed by removal of bark, it is neces- 
sary to keep the tissue from drying out, and antiseptics 
are usually not applied. Bandaging with cloth is the 
usual practice, after the wound is cleaned and trimmed. 

The repairs fall into two classes, — those that require 
merely removal of injured parts and treatment of the 
wounds, and those that demand the ingrafting of new 
wood. 

We have learned, in the discussion of pruning, that 
long projecting ends of severed branches do not heal. 
The branches to be removed should be cut back close 
to the larger branch or to the juncture with another. In 
repairing injured trees, all projecting parts that do not 
have life in themselves must be removed. All wounds 



THE MENDING OF THE APPLE-TREE 87 

should be left smooth, without splinters or hanging bark. 
Decaying wood is to be removed, and the area cleaned 
out and disinfected. 

The nature-lover may find much to interest him in the 
observation of knot-holes as he comes and goes. Every 
knot-hole has a history ; this history usually can be traced 
by one whose eye is keen and who becomes practiced 
in connecting cause with final result. One prides oneself 
on the ability to work out the obscure cases. An old 
neglected apple orchard thereby affords much entertain- 
ment. 

If a very large branch breaks off, the remaining part 
is cut back to fresh hard wood ; antiseptic is applied ; the 
other part of the tree may be shortened-in to aid in re- 
storing the proportion or balance. 

Deep cavities caused by rot are cleaned out, disin- 
fected with bordeaux mixture, gas-tar, or other material, 
and the place filled completely with cement. 

In some cases, new wood is added in the form of cions 
of last year's twigs. Such cions may be set around the edge 
of a stub, thrust between the bark and the wood, to start 
new branches where an important one was broken off. 
The cions are cut wedge-shape (much as those in Fig. 18) 
and a bandage is tied around the stub to hold them in 
place; the exposed parts are covered with grafting-wax. 
The operation is performed in spring. 

Sometimes cions are used to bridge a girdle. Usually 
a girdle heals itself if the injury does not extend into the 
wood, and if it is bound up to prevent drying out; but 
when the injury is deep and the exposed wood has be- 
come dry and hard, the cions may be used. The cions are 
somewhat longer than the width of the girdle. The edo-es 



88 THE APPLE-TREE 

of the girdle are trimmed to fresh tight bark; cions are 
cut wedge-shape at either end; the ends are inserted 
underneath the bark at bottom and top of the wound; 
edges of the wound are securely bandaged; entire work 
is covered with wax. The cions are many, so close that 
they nearly touch. The buds on the cions are not al- 
lowed to produce branches. This process is known as 
bridge-grafting. 

With some experience, the cultivator soon learns to 
make many deft applications of ingrafting. Sometimes 
a piece of bark may be used as a patch. In the bracing 
of crotches in young trees, the two trunks may be joined 
by uniting a small branch from either one, twisting them 
together to form a bridge like a bolt; they can be made 
to grow together, forming a solid union. Bolting the 
parts with iron rods, or holding them together by means 
of chains, is the usual and commonly the better method. 
The iron is not to go around a limb, however, for gird- 
ling results ; the rods or chains should be secured by 
bolts bored through the wood and pulling against large 
heads or washers. 

The usual repairs are easily made. When trees are 
badly injured, and particularly when the tree is low in 
vitality, it may not be worth while to engage in surgery. 
It may be better to plant a new tree. Saving very old 
trees by the mending processes is not likely to be satis- 
factory. The grower should transfer his affection to a 
young tree. If the tree has had good care throughout its 
life, it probably will not need much surgery in old age. 
The grower will be willing, when the time comes, to 
take a photograph for memory's sake and to let the tree 
come to a timely and artistic end. 



XIV 
CITIZENS OF THE APPLE-TREE 

Many years ago, my old friend, the late Dr. J. A. 
Lintner, State Entomologist of New York, compiled a 
list of 356 insects that feed on the apple-tree. Later 
authorities place the number at nearly live hundred spe- 
cies. It must be a good plant that has such a host of 
denizens. The number of fungi is also large ; and 
the tree often supports lichens, algae, and other forms 
of life. 

The apple-tree is not single in its denizens. No plant 
lives alone. It has association with its fellows, perhaps 
contest for space and nourishment. It provides habitat 
for many organisms, many of which live on its bounty. 
I have never seen a bearing apple-tree that was not a 
colonizing place for other living things. We accept 
these things as matters of course, as being in place, living 
their part in nature. Therefore, one cannot understand 
the apple-tree unless one knows something of its 
citizenry. 

Probably the most prominent citizen of the apple- 
tree is the codlin-moth. Its larva is the apple-worm, 
the one that makes *Vormy apples," the burrows going 
to the core and out again. The insect is native in Europe, 
but has been known in North America nearly two hun- 

89 



90 THE APPLE-TREE 

dred years, and is widespread in the apple countries of 
the world. 

If one has screens in the apple cellar, one is likely to 
find small moths on them in the spring, larger than a 
clothes moth, about three-fourths inch in spread of the 
soft gray watered-silk wings. This is the imago or ma- 
ture form of the insect known as the codlin-moth (it 
lives on codlins or apples). The larvae or "worms" were 
brought into the cellar in the apples; some of them 
crawled out, spun themselves in a cocoon and pupated ; 
in due season the moth emerged, ready to lay the eggs 
for other larvae. Ordinarily the fruit-grower does 
not see the moth, for it is a small object amidst the 
foliage of apple-trees ; the larva or apple-worm he knows 
well. 

There may be two or more broods of apple-worms, 
depending on the length of the season. In the northern 
apple regions of North America there is usually only one 
brood, with a partial second brood. The first brood is 
hatched from eggs laid by moths that emerge in spring. 
The moths come from larvae that have lain in cocoons all 
winter, hidden under bark on the trunks and main 
branches of the apple-tree, in crevices in nearby posts 
and fences, and sometimes in the ground. The pupae 
are the transformed larvae or worms that left the apple 
of the previous year, usually before it fell, and crawled 
down the tree to find a place to spin the silken brown 
cocoons in which they wrapped themselves to undergo 
the wonderful transformation. 

So is the cycle complete: egg laid in early spring, 
mostly on the leaves; larva hatched in about one week, 
crawling to the young apple to feed, where it lives for 



CITIZENS OF THE APPLE-TREE 91 

perhaps a month; larva departed from the fruit to form 
a cocoon and to remain quiescent till it pupates the fol- 
lowing spring (if there is no second brood) when it trans- 
forms into a moth; the moth alive for one week or ten 
days, laying perhaps as many as one hundred eggs or 
even more. If there is a second or third brood, the pupa 
resurrects in ten days or so into the moth ; eggs are laid ; 
larvae are hatched; pupae again are formed; and thus is 
the process continued. But the winter stage is the larva, 
although perhaps in store-houses the moths may emerge 
earlier and survive till spring. 

The eggs of the first brood are commonly laid on the 
leaves and fruit. The young larva or worm eats very 
Httle on the foilage. It usually crawls into the blossom 
end of the apple. The young apple stands erect, with the 
calyx open i;Fig. 6) ; later the calyx closes and protects 
the larva that hatched there, forming a good cover for 
its operations (Fig. 7). The worm drives for the core, 
where it eats the young seeds and burrows extensively ; 
then, when nearly grown, it sets out for the surface, eat- 
ing a straight burrow ; an opening is made through the 
skin of the apple, but this exit is plugged until the animal 
is ready to leave the place and to crawl down the tree to 
pupate. The larvae of later broods may enter at the side 
of the apple, where a leaf affords protection or where 
two fruits come together ; but the life-history is the same, 
varying in its rapidity. 

This account discloses the vulnerable point in the 
life-history, if one is to destroy the insects and to grow 
fair fruit; if poison is lodged on the erect open-topped 
little apple, the young larva will get it before he injures 
the fruit. If the application of the poison is delayed until 



92. THE APPLE-TREE 

the calyx closes (Fig. 7), there will be small chance of 
reaching the worm. The best way to reach the second 
brood is to destroy all the first brood. The standard 
practice, therefore, is to spray the trees soon after the 
petals fall, with the idea of depositing arsenic in the 
blossom end. 

But the season of egg-laying is long, often extending 
over a period of three or four weeks, for the moths do 
not all emerge from the cocoons simultaneously. It is 
customary, therefore, to spray again about two weeks 
after the first application, with the hope of catching the 
young worms on their way to the fruit. 

There is no question about the efficacy of spraying. 
Its value has been demonstrated time and again. The 
methods and the materials may be learned from the ex- 
periment station publications in any State, wherein the 
advice is kept up-to-date. 

In the days before the perfecting of the spraying pro- 
cesses, the codlin-moth was controlled by catching the 
pupating larvae. Taking advantage of the habit of the 
worm to find lodgment under the bark on the trunk, it was 
the practice to scrape the loose bark from bole and large 
branches to destroy the hiding-places and then to tie a 
band of cloth around the trunk. Under this band the 
worms were taken, as they spun themselves up in the 
cocoons. This is a lesson taken from the industrious 
woodpeckers, who, in the winter, search the trees for 
the pupae and make holes through the flakes of bark to 
get them. The scraping of apple-trees is not much re- 
commended now for the reason that this special necessity 
is passed, and because the better tillage and care together 
with the soaking of the branches and trunk in the spray- 



CITIZENS OF THE APPLE-TREE 93 

ing operation, tend to keep the tree vigorous and the 
bark properly exfoHated. 

So the worm in the apple has a delicate and interest- 
ing history. From egg to imago the transformations pro- 
ceed with regularity, and they are marvelous. Had we 
not traced the sequence, no man could tell by appear- 
ances that the larva, the pupa and the moth are one and 
the same animal. They seem to have nothing in common. 
So is the egg stage as different as the other three, but 
we are measurably prepared for this epoch, since we 
know seeds so well ; the egg and the seed are analagous. 
That a moth in the air should come from a crawling 
worm in an apple is indeed one of the miracles of nature. 
The worm leaves the apple ere it falls ; how the worm 
knows the time is again a mystery. By some instinct, 
it is able to cognize a dying apple. The later worms, 
either the lastlings from the early brood or the product 
of subsequent broods, may remain in the apple when it 
is harvested, particularly in an apple picked before it is 
quite mature and from which the worm has not escaped. 

The apple-worm ruins the crop by killing many of the 
fruits and by blemishing the remainder. Seldom are 
there two worms in an apple. They seem to respect each 
other's hunting-ground. From the worm's point of view 
and from man's, one is enough. 

If man has dominion and if he needs apples, then 
is he within his rights if he joins issue with the insects. 
Yet is the insect as interesting for all that. I think we 
should miss many of the satisfactions of life, and cer- 
tainly some of the disciplines, if there were no insects. 
My apple-tree is a great place for a naturalist. Van 
Bruyssel wrote a book on "The Population of an Old 



94 THE APPLE-TREE 

Pear-Tree." "When certain blue spirits begin to flit 
about me," he writes, "I depart from my study to go and 
read, in what I am allowed, even by my clerical uncle, 
to call my book of devotions. The devotions I mean are 
not in my book-case. No publisher, if he ever thought 
of such a thing, could bring them out. They are a page 
of the book of Nature, opened in the country, under blue 
sky, displayed at all season." What a marvelous com- 
pany Van Bruyssel found on his old pear tree ; and what 
inexhaustible worlds did Fabre discover in the lives of 
the spider, the fly, the caterpillar, the wasps, the mason- 
bees and others ! 

Therefore we need not pause with the other four 
hundred and more insect citizens of the apple-tree. Some 
of them, as the San Jose scale, are not peculiarly apple- 
tree insects. My tree has another crew of inhabitants, 
and to this company we may now have introduction. 

The spots on the leaves and fruits are not deposits 
of dirt or are they caused by mysterious conditions in 
the atmosphere, as once supposed, nor is it in the nature 
of leaves to be spotted and of fruits to be scabby; nor 
are the one-sided dwarfed fruits merely accidents. The 
organism responsible for these blemishes is less evident 
than the codlin-moth ; yet what fruit-grower knows the 
eggs of the codlin-moth? But the organisms are as 
definite as are the insects ; no longer are the fungi things 
without form and without positive cycles. 

On the ground are apple leaves, shed in the autumn. 
On the leaves are spots or lesions, — injured or "diseased" 
— infected with the apple-scab fungus. Under a good 
microscope the investigatior finds immature fruiting 
bodies in these areas. In the early days of Spring, these 



CITIZENS OF THE APPLE-TREE 95 

bodies or winter-spores mature. A rain discharges them 
in astonishing numbers. Rising in the air (for they are 
incredibly light), these spores lodge on the unfolding 
leaves and flowers of the apple, and there begin to ger- 
minate, invading the tissue. The tissue is penetrated 
and killed so rapidly that the practiced eye soon discovers 
a "spot." The leaf, if badly infected, may not reach 
full size ; it may curl ; it may die and fall ; the tree thereby 
is injured. 

From the fungus in the active diseased areas, an- 
other kind of spore develops rapidly. It is the summer- 
spore, which may be produced in prodigious numbers, 
and being discharged carries the disease elsewhere. 

All summer the process of spore-formation and dis- 
tribution keeps up. If conditions are favorable, the tree 
is invaded in foliage and fruit. The flower-stems in the 
unfolding buds are attacked by the winter-spores and the 
flower falls. The apples become spotted from the in- 
vasion of the summer-spores, perhaps misshapen. Late 
infections may not show at picking time, but develop on 
the fruit in storage. The affected leaves are cast in the 
autumn, the winter-spores begin to form, the snows come 
and hide the processes, in spring the spores mature ; and 
so does the round of life go on and on. 

There are beautiful forms in these fragile fungus 
threads that eat their way into the tissues of the host. 
There are fascinating phenomena in the growth and re- 
production. Even so and for all that, man protects his 
tree by spraying It with poison, and thereby again does 
he have dominion. 

The spraying for apple-scab is with lime-sulfur to 
which may be added arsenate of lead. This treatment. 



96 THE APPLE-TREE 

properly timed, may suffice also for the codlin-moth. 
As the fungus may attack the flower-stems and kill them, 
so is the first application made when the flower-buds 
open and the stems begin to separate, but before the 
flowers expand ; the operator has a period of one to three 
days in which to spray. A second spraying is given just 
after the blossoms fall, as for codlin-moth ; if the season 
is wet, a third application may be made ten to fourteen 
days later ; if the fungus seems to spread, a fourth spray- 
ing may be applied in midsummer. These sprayings, 
variously modified, control not only the codlin-moth and 
the scab fungus but also scale, blister-mite, plant-lice, 
leaf-roller, case-bearer, bud-moth, red-bug and others. 

In the tropics one sees trees bearing great burdens 
of orchids and bromeliads and ferns and mosses, and one 
wonders at the strange and exuberant population. Yet 
here is my apple-tree supporting epiphytes and parasites 
and insects, protector and nurse of a goodly company ; 
and birds nest on the branches thereof. 



XV 
THE APPLE-TREE REGIONS 

The northern hemisphere is the home of the apple, 
particularly Central Europe, Canada, the United States. 
In certain regions in the southern hemisphere the tem- 
perature and humidity are right for the good growing of 
apples, mostly in elevated areas. In New Zealand 
and parts of Australia, apple-growing is assuming large 
proportions. Their export trade to Europe and parts of 
South America has come to be important and undoubt- 
edly is destined greatly to increase. 

In Europe, where land is often limited and high in 
price, apple-trees may be planted closer than in Amer- 
ica, even in field conditions, and more attention is given 
tc pruning, heading-in, and the development of fruit- 
spurs in the interior of the tree-top. I noticed this prac- 
tice in New Zealand, also. In these directions, the Euro- 
peans have much to teach us in the careful growing of 
good apples. In Europe, the definite training of the 
apple-tree begins in the nursery; quantity-production, 
with standardization, is not there the aim. 

In North America the general practice is to let the 
tree take its course, reaching its full natural stature. The 
pruning is mostly corrective, to keep the tree in shape 
and to prevent the top from becoming too thick, rather 

97 



98 THE APPLE-TREE 

than in the development of fruiting wood. The con- 
sequence is that our trees become very large, specially in 
New York and New England where they are long-lived. 
In the western country, as we have learned, the apple- 
tree tends to be shorter-lived and does not usually attain 
such great size. In the New York apple country, or- 
chards may be in good bearing at forty to sixty years 
from planting, and individual trees may be productive 
much longer than this. The trees come into good bear- 
ing in ten to fifteen years. In the irrigated regions of 
the West, the trees may be expected to bear a good crop 
two to five years earlier; to what age they may attain, 
in large plantations, it is yet too early to state. 

The commercial apple regions of North America are 
in Canada and the northern United States, comprising 
about two or three tiers of States, with important exten- 
sions southward into the mountains and in special parts. 
The Southern States are not known as apple-growing 
country, except in special restricted elevated areas, al- 
though there are considerable plantations near the Gulf 
of Mexico. 

The geography of apple-growing on the North Amer- 
ican continent cannot be better displayed than by copy- 
ing the table of contents of the larger part of Chapters 
III and n in Folger and Thomson's excellent recent book, 
"The Commercial Apple Industry of North America:" 

Commercial Apple Production in Canada 

Nova Scotia 

Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick 

Quebec 

Ontario 

British iColumbia. 



THE APPLE-TREE REGIONS 99 

Leading Apple Regions of the United States 

Western New York 

Hudson Valley 

New England Baldwin belt 

The Champlain district 

New Jersey 

Delaware 

Shenandoah-Cumberland district 

Piedmont district of Virginia 

Minor regions in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia 

Mountain region of North Carolina 

Mountain region of Georgia 

Ohio 

Southern Ohio, Rome Beauty district 
Minor regions in Ohio 
Kentucky 
Michigan 
Illinois' 

Southern Illinois early apple region 
Mississippi Valley region of Illinois 
Ozark region 
Missouri River region 
Arkansas Valley of Kansas 

Southeastern Illinois 
Colorado 
New Mexico 
Utah 
Montana 
Washington 

Yakima Valley 

Wenatchee North Central Washington district 
Spokane district 
Walla Walla district 
Oregon 

Hood River Valley 
Rogue River Valley 
Other apple districts in Oregon 



100 THE APPLE-TREE 

Idaho 

Payette district 

Boise Valley 

Twin Falls 

Lewiston section 
California 

Watsonville district 

Sebastopol apple district 

Yucaipa section 
Wisconsin 
Minnesota 

The varieties of the South and the North, and largely 
also of the West and the East, are prevailingly different. 
Canada has a set of apples quite its own. These differ- 
ences are marked when one visits exhibitions in the 
various regions. Let the visitor who is a good judge of 
apples in Michigan and Ohio attempt to judge them in 
an exhibition in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia, in 
the Province of Quebec, in North Carolina, in Minnesota, 
in Oregon. He will be impressed with the wonderful 
diversity, as well as the undeveloped resources, of the 
continent. 

Southward, apples do not keep well. There are no 
true winter apples in the Southern States, outside moun- 
tain regions. A winter apple of the North becomes a 
fall apple in the South. In fact, there are marked differ- 
ences in keeping quality within a single State. On grav- 
ly lands or warm slopes in the southern part of New York, 
the Northern Spy may become practically a late autumn 
apple ; in the northern parts of the State it is a firm crisp 
all-winter keeper. In the winter apple, the ripening pro- 
cess proceeds in storage. When the season is so long 



THE APPLE-TREE REGIONS 101 

that maturity is reached on the .tree, the subsequent 
duration is relatively short. 

It is not to be inferred, however, that apples are to 
be grov^n only in regions and soils naturally well adapted. 
Such adaptations should be controlling in commercial 
plantations; but if man has dominion he should be able 
to accomplish much in untoward or even in hostile con- 
ditions. Even the city lot may be able to yield a harvest, 
if the occupant of it is minded in fruits rather than in 
other things. Every observant traveler has noted cases 
in which good results in the rearing of plants and animals 
have been attained in places that no one would choose 
for the purpose: the man has overcome his obstacles. 
I was impressed with this fact in visiting a greenhouse 
in the Shetland Islands. Cultivation has been carried 
far beyond the optimum regions. The merit of the man's 
performance is measured in the excellence of his result 
rather than in the quantity of it. The application of 
skill is the highest test of ability in plant-growing, and 
this is often expressed in the most difficult places. 

Whatever may be the adaptability of any general 
territory to the growing of apples in a large way, the 
probability is that a man of resources and skill will be 
able to raise good apples for himself, unless, of course, 
the region is prohibitive. The amateur may be a law unto 
himself in many of these matters, delighting in the in- 
genuity that enables him to overcome. 



XVI 
THE HARVEST OF THE APPLE-TREE 

Finally the apple is ripe, a fair goodly object joyous 
in the sun, inviting to every sense. Hanging amidst its 
foliage, bending the twig with its weight, it is at once a 
pattern in good shape, perfect in configuration, in sheen 
beyond imitation, in fragrance the very affluence of all 
choice clean growth, its surface spread with a bloom 
often so delicate that the unsympathetic see it not ; and 
yet the rains do not spoil it. 

The apple must be picked. Do not let it fall. Probably 
it is over-ripe when it falls ; the hold is loosened ; its time 
is up. Wormy apples may fall before they are ripe; the 
worm injury, if it begins early, causes them to ripen pre- 
maturely. A premature apple is not a good apple, albeit 
the small boy relishes it but only because he may get 
his apple earlier; in the apple season, when ripe fruits are 
abundant, the boy does not choose the wormy one. 

Pick the apple from the tree. It will do you good. 
It is ever so much better than to pick it from a box on the 
market or out of a quart-can in the ice-chest. You will 
feel some sense of responsibility when you pick it, some 
reaction of relationship to its origin. We know that we 
understand folks better when we see them at home. 

In varieties that mature before winter, the apple is of 

102 



THE HARVEST OF THE APPLE-TREE 103 

best quality when it ripens on the tree and is picked when 
fit to eat. In this respect it differs from the pear. One 
reason why store apples are usually poor is because they 
must be picked long before ripe to stand shipment. In 
my experience it is most difficult to find a man who will 
pick apples when ripe; he is usually possessed to pull 
them green, thinking that if the fruit is full grown and 
has a red cheek it is therefore ready to be plucked. 

One would expect the best summer and fall apples to 
come from nearby local orchards, but practically this is 
not the case because the grower will not allow them to 
remain on the tree until they are fit. Of course the really 
ripe apple will not keep long and it does not stand rough 
handling, but this does not affect the fact that, for eating, 
an apple should be naturally ripe. In every city, small or 
large, a good trade can be built up for local ripe hand- 
picked fruit of the first quality, in competition with the 
best commercial supply. 

Winter apples are picked in the Northern States in 
October, sometimes late in September. They are then 
full grown, but are hard and inedible. The red varieties 
are full colored ; the green ones show more or less yellow. 
Light early frost does not injure them on the tree. Usu- 
ally they are placed at first in piles or windrows ; and 
from these piles they are barreled or boxed for market. 
If the choicest grades are to be made, they should be 
taken to a packing-house. 

The apple is an easy fruit to pick. The stem parts 
readily from the spur or twig. Yet if the harvester is 
choice of his trees he will work deftly rather than 
roughly, not to injure the bearing wood. The fruits are 
placed in baskets as they are plucked, sometimes in a 



104 THE APPLE-TREE 

bag slung over the shoulders but this is not the best way 
when the apples are ripe. In the packing-house, the 
fruits are sorted into uniform grades if they are for 
market. 

The better the trees are tilled, pruned and sprayed, 
the more uniform will be the crop, and particularly if 
the fruit is thinned on the tree; yet the second-class and 
even cull apples will be many under ordinary conditions. 
The purchaser, noting the price of extra-grade apples, may 
not realize that he buys only the remainder in a long 
process of grading, extending really over the season or 
even throughout the life of the orchard. In all this time, 
the grower has borne the risks of frosts and hail, insect 
and fungus invasions, lack of help, and disastrously low 
prices. A finished product of high quality is always 
expensive. 

The usual apples on the open market are not the kind 
I have here tried to describe. They are the product of 
indifferent orchards or of careless handling. They are 
purchased for cooking; and the eating of apples out of 
hand because they are attractive and really good is an 
unknown experience with great numbers of our people. 
The polished shiny apples of the fruit-stands are a de- 
lusion. The practice of burnishing the fruits produces 
a most inartistic result, destroying the natural bloom and 
violating the appearance of a natural apple. It is one 
thing to clean a fruit if it is soiled (which is seldom the 
case with boxed or barreled apples); it is quite another 
thing to rub and furbish an apple as if it were a billiard 
ball or glass marble and not a living object that grew on 
a tree, — it sets false standards before the children. Yet 
all this is in line with much of our practice whereby, in 




12. September 22, and the buds are formed for the next year's crop 





13. The apples In section 



THE HARVEST OF THE APPLE-TREE 105 

cookery and manipulation, we disguise our foods and 
show our lack of appreciation of the products themselves. 
For home use, winter apples may well be stored in 
boxes in a cool moist cellar if such a place is available. 
For best results in long keeping, the temperature should 
be maintained below 40 degrees F. In a cellar containing 
a furnace, the fruits shrivel from too much evaporation, 
as also in an attic or other dry room. If the fruit must 
be stored in such places, it is well to keep the box or 
barrel tightly closed, and the individual apples may be 
wrapped in thin paper. 

The apples must be sorted now and then, to remove 
the decaying ones ; if the fruit was carefully sprayed, 
handled and graded in the first place and not too ripe, 
the necessity of frequent sorting will be considerably re- 
duced. But in any case, the keeping of apples, except 
under good cold-storage, is at best a process of continu- 
ally saving the most durable fruits. An "outside cellar," 
if properly ventilated, usually is a good place in which 
to keep apples. With the use of furnaces for heating 
and the cramped quarters of city apartments, the keeping 
of apples for home supply is constantly more difficult. 

There is no apple like the one that comes up fresh 
from the cellar on a winter night, cool, crisp, solid yet 
ready. It is the fruit of the home fireside. I often won- 
der whether one in a hundred of the people know what a 
really good and timely apple is. 

The yield of an apple-tree depends on many factors, — 
age, size, thriftiness, care it has received, whether it has 
escaped frost and other injuries ; and some varieties are 
much more prolific than others. Some apples are "shy 
bearers," and for this reason soon are lost to propagation 



106 THE APPLE-TREE 

unless they have some superlative merit ;Yellow Bell- 
flower is an example of a shy, or at least an irregular, 
bearer. The great commercial varieties are of course 
good bearers, as Baldwin, Ben Davis, Stayman, York 
Imperial, Oldenburg, Rome, Mcintosh, Wealthy, Yellow 
Transparent, Jonathan. 

An apple-tree at full bearing is a wonderful sight at 
the harvest, particularly in such varieties as Mcintosh 
and Baldwin, in which the fruit is highly colored and 
hangs well toward the outside of the tree-top. While 
the first bearing year may yield only a half dozen fruits, 
the crop increases rapidly with the added years, — one 
peck, one bushel, five bushels, ten bushels, thirty bushels, 
even to sixty and seventy bushels on large sturdy old 
trees of some varieties. The amateur, however, first 
prizes the quality and regularity of his product for the 
sheer joy of it; then every added bushel is so much to 
the good, 



XVII 
THE APPRAISAL OF THE APPLE-TREE 

Now, therefore, in these sixteen little chapters have 
I tried to explain what I feel about the apple-tree. It is 
a version to my friend, the reader, not a treatise. 

As the interpretation is in the realm of the sensibil- 
ities, so do I aim not directly at concreteness. Yet as 
it is now the fashion to "score" all our products by a 
scale of "points," I make a reasonable concession to it. 
But I do not like the scoring of the fruit independently 
of the tree on which it grew as if the fruit were only a 
commodity. I know we cannot bring the tree to the 
exhibition-room, yet the perfect measure, nevertheless, is 
the tree and the fruit together. In these later times we 
have said much against the use of the museum specimen 
to the exclusion of the living object in its natural place: 
let us be cautious, then, that we do not forget apple-trees 
in our studies of apples. 

Here I shall not arrange numerical scales of points 
for the apple-tree. Sufficient for this occasion is the 
naming of the points, letting the reader place his own 
percentage-value on each of them ; for I am trying to 
teach, not to instruct. 

Yet I must insert, for the reader's benefit, certain good 
rules and scores that have been adopted for the "judg- 

107 



108 THE APPLE-TREE 

ing" of the fruit by those experienced in these matters. 
This excellent exercise of judging fruits at exhibitions has 
gained much headway. Students of schools and colleges 
are trained for the "judging teams," and great technical 
perfection has been attained. 

To be exact is an exigency of science. I fear that we 
make exactness an end, but that is neither here nor there 
on this occasion and I shall not now pursue the subject 
further; I hope the judging trains the judge to see what 
he looks at in other things as well as in apples, that it 
leads him into the pleasant paths of causes and effects, 
that it opens the eyes of the blind. 

The customary judging of plants and animals and 
their products consists in assessing the attributes against 
a scale of perfection. Thus, if **form" or "conformation" 
is worth 10 points in the hundred (by the estimation of 
good authorities), the judge must decide whether the 
particular animal before him merits 6 or 7, more or less. 
So if "flavor" in an apple is considered to be worth 20 
points of the hundred, the judge makes up his mind what 
rating, within that limit, he shall accord to the fruit he 
is testing. The arrangement in tabular form of the feat- 
ures for any product, with the number of points stated 
for each, all summing 100, constitutes a "score-card." 
Thus there may be a score-card for Merino sheep, another 
for Shropshires, one for apples, and for any other objects 
whatsoever. 

At competitive exhibitions, the element of comparison 
comes in. Perhaps it is the only criterion to be considered 
in a particular case, — whether this apple is better than 
that or than any number of others, which of several 
"plates" or samples of apples merits first mention, which 



THE APPRAISAL OF THE APPLE-TREE 109 

of two or more collections of varieties is altogether most 
worthy of a prize. In these cases, the different fruits or 
collections may be scored by the card, and the total foot- 
ings determine where the award shall go. Or, the dif- 
ferent entries may be judged in general, ''by the eye;" 
this is the usual method, and is satisfactory in the hands 
of persons whose standing and experience carry convic- 
tion. 

If one is to evaluate an apple-tree against a scale or 
code, these are some of the features, in relative order of 
importance, to be considered : 

1. Whether the tree is typical of the variety, in shape, 
manner of growth, character of foliage and bloom. 

2. Whether it is sound of all injury and disease, and 
free of blemish. 

3. Whether it is duly vigorous and productive. 

4. Whether its fruit is characteristic of the variety or 
kind. 

5. Whether the pruning has been good; the thinning; 
the spraying. 

6. Whether the performance of the tree has fulfilled 
reasonable expectations. 

The judging of fruits is facilitated by such score- 
cards and explanations as the following: 
1. For comparison of different dessert varieties. 

Conformation 10 

Size 5 

Color 20 

Core 5 

Uniformity 5 

Durability (keeping) 10 



no THE APPLE-TREE 

Condition 5 

Freedom from blemish 10 

Quality 30 



100 

2. For comparison of plates or samples of the same 
variety. 

Form 15 

Size 15 

Color 25 

Uniformity 25 

Freedom from blemish 20 



100 



DIRECTIONS FOR JUDGING PLATES OF APPLES 
IN AN EXHIBITION 

Following are directions and explanations issued to 
judging teams in exhibition contests, by an agricultural 
college : 

(1) Form: The shape and conformation of the apples on any one 
plate should be typical for the variety, the region of growth 
being somewhat considered. All specimens on a plate should 
be uniform in shape. When competition is close, a careful 
comparison of the more minute characteristics of the basin, 
cavity and stem are made. 

(2) Size : The specimens on any one plate should be uniform in 
size and of the size most acceptable on the market for the 
variety. A plate may be marked down for being either under 
or over the accepted commercial size. In many exhibits, the 
ideal size is given in the premium announcements. 

(3) Colors : All specimens in an entry should be uniformly colored 
in the way that is considered perfect for the variety in the 



THE APPRAISAL OF THE APPLE-TREE HI 

district where grown. In judging color, one should consider 
(a) the depth and attractiveness of the ground color, (b) the 
brightness and attractiveness of the over-color, (c) the amount 
of the over-color. In a yellow or green apple, the yellow or 
green should be clear and even all over, considering the 
maturity of the specimen. In varieties that are typically blushed, 
(e. g., Maiden Blush) the specimens should show a distinct 
tinge of red on the cheek exposed to the sun. With such apples 
as Rhode Island Greening, that are only sometimes blushed, 
the presence or absence of the blush should not detract except 
that the apples on any one plate should be uniform. With 
apples typically over-colored, an intense color for the variety 
is desirable. 

The bloom may be wiped from apples, but in no case should 
polished specimens be given the preference. Some exhibits 
have special rules regarding polishing of apples. 

(4) Conditions: Refers to the degree of ripeness. An apple to be 
in perfect, condition should be firm for the variety and free 
from the withering that comes when apples are picked too green 
or when the fruit is over-ripe or has not been stored- properly. 

(5) Freedom from blemish: All specimens should be free from 
blemishes of all kinds. One should look particularly for (a) 
marks of fungous or other disease, including stippin, (6) injury 
from insects of all kinds, (c) mechanical injury, including loss 
of stem. Unmistakable evidence of codlin-moth injury or San 
Jose scale should disqualify a plate. Other blemishes are con- 
sidered important in about the order named: Side worms, 
scab, stippin, curculio or red-bug, skin punctures, bruises, stem 
pulled, russet (not typical for variety) and limb rub. The 
extent of scab spots should be considered. Minute spots are 
not as serious as some other blemishes, while spots which de- 
form the apple should disqualify the plate. 

Other information : Five specimens constitute a plate, except when 
the rules of the contest or exhibit state otherwise. Any 
variation from this rule disqualifies the plate. 
When a plate is not labelled with the correct variety name, it 

should not be judged, but is disqualified ana if possible the correct 

name is applied. If one specimen on a plate is not as labelled, the 

whole plate is disqualified. 



112 THE APPLE-TREE 

In some judging contests, the plates are not labelled with the 
variety name, and the contestant is supposed to make the identifica- 
tion. 

Precaution : Avoid pressing the specimens with the thumb and 

finger so as to bruise the fruit. The degree of firmness can 

be determined* by gentle pressure with the inside of the 

whole hand'. 

Defects, apparent or otherwise, should not be probed with the 

finger nail, pin, or other hard object. 

Special care should be exercised to replace all specimens on the 
right plate. , 

Having in mind these definite criteria, the reader will 
know what is meant by a ''good apple" and also a good 
apple-tree. Measurements of perfection aid us to esti- 
mate the deficiencies. 



He who knows the apple-tree knows also its region. 
The landscape is his in every blessed year; he sees 
the chariots of the months come down from the distances 
and pass by him into the twilights. Clouds are his and 
the repeating shadows on the hills. The morning when 
the blossoms are laden with the fragrance of the night, 
high noon when the bees are busy, the gloaming when 
the birds drop into the boughs, these are his by divine 
right. The smell of new-plowed fields is his, with the 
urgent promise in them. Seed time and harvest, as old 
as the procreant earth and as new as the latest sunrise, 
are his to conjure. The verities are his for the asking, the 
strong things of cultivated fields and of wild places. And 
mastery is his, that comes of the amelioration of the land 
and the education of the tree. All these are everyman's, 
and yet they are his alone. 



INDEX 

PAGE 

Acid phosphate _ . . 45 

Age of apple-trees 98 

Alternate bearing , 42 

American Pomological Society .'. 66 

Apple-scab 95 

Appleseed, Johny 61 

Arsenate of lead 95 

Australia, Apples in 97 

Bacteria 12 

Bark of apple-tree 11 

of cheery 11 

of elm 11 

of pear-tree 11 

Bearing year 42 

Black Gilliflower 73 

Bloomless apple 7S 

Bolting trees 88 

Bridge-grafting 88 

Brush pile 27 

Budding 50, 51 

Buds 15, 19, 27 

Calyx-tube 26 

Canada, apples in 98 

Canker 12 

Cherimoya 8 

Cherry, bark of 11 

Christophine 8 

Cider, treatise on 62 

Cion-graf ting 50, 79 

113 



114 INDEX 

PAGE 

Citrus fruits 8 

Cleft-grafting 82 

Coconut . 8 

Codlin-moth 12, 89 

Custard apple 8 

Diseases 46 

Distance apart 43 

Double apples 74 

Doucin stocks 57 

Downing, quoted 54, 67 

Dwarf apple-trees 54 

Elm, bark of - 11 

Endicott, Gov 61 

Enriching the land 45 

Exhibitions 108 

Fertilizing 40, 44, 45 

Fig 8 

Flower, structure of 20 

Folger and Thomson, quoted 98 

Fructicetum 78 

Fruit-spurs and bearing 42 

Fungi 12 

Girdles 87 

Graftage 49, 79 

Grafts 81 

Guava 8 

Harvesting 102 

Hillsides for orchards 44 

Hogs in orchards 45 

Hypanthium 26 

Insects 46, 89 

Judging apples ; ; ' oV* ^ o? 

Knots 11, 8o, 87 

Land for apples 42 

Langley, Batty 82 

Lawson, William 82 

Leaf-arrangement 29 



INDEX 115 

PAGE 

Lichens 11 

Lime-sulphur , 95 

Linnaeus 62 

Lintner, J. A 89 

Malus 62 

Mamone 8 

Mango 8 

Manning, mentioned 67 

M'Mahon, quoted 66 

Medlar 75 

Mending trees 85 

Moench, cited 75 

Mound-layering 55 

Muenchhausen, cited 75 

Natural trees 51 

New Zealand, apples in 97 

Nitrate of soda 45 

Origin of apple-tree 60 

Ornamental apples ' 64 

Ovary 20 

Paint for wounds 86 

Papaya 8 

Paradise stocks 57 

Parkinson, John 58 

Pasturing 45 

Pear, bark of 11 

Phosphate, acid 45 

Phyllotaxy 29 

Picking apples 102 

Piece-roots 50 

Pistil 20, 26 

Plant-breeder • 51 

Planting 42, 43 

Plant-lice 12 

Pollen-tube 20 

Pollination 40 

Pomegranate 8 



116 INDEX 

PAGE 

Propagation of apple-tree 48, 54 

Pruning 36, 40, 86, 104 

Pyrus baccata 63 

coronaria 63 

diocia 75 

loensis 63 

Mains 62, 63 

Soulardii 64 

Receptacle of flower 26 

Regions for apples 97, 99 

Repairing trees 85 

Root-grafting 50 

Roots 43 

Scale insects 12 

Scale of points 108 

Score-card 108 

Seedless apple 74 

Seedling trees 48, 51 

Seeds, planting 48 

Sharrock, Robert 81 

Sheep in orchards 45 

Sheepnose 73 

Sod in orchards 44 

Soil for apples 42 

Spraying 40, 91, 95, 104 

Star-apple 8 

Stigma 20 

Stocks 49 

Storing 10^ 

Struggle for existence 47 

Style 20 

Surgery 86 

Surprise ^^ 

Sweet-and-Sour T^ 

Thinning 38, 39 

Thomson and Folger 98 

Tilling 40,44,47, 104 



INDEX 117 

PAGE 

Tree surgery 86 

Varieties 66 

list of 70 

Water-core 74 

Whip-graft 50 

Wilder, mentioned 67 

Wormy apples 89, 102 



